Pretty simple. Not every grinder is a master grinder. And every master grinder started out as the FNG who could do nothing right. I think a lot of the entry level Dovos that have issues are newbie grinders' mistakes. The steel is supposed to be the same and does seem to be the same. The midrange and top shelf Dovos are very nice razors. They have to have new guys coming in to replace the old guys who retire or die off. It all adds up. And the razors that don't take kindly to the quench get thrown in the same basket as the mistakes, and etched with "Best Quality" or "Special" or whatever. Nearly all can still be made to shave nicely, but you can't always treat them nicely to make them do so. The better vendors that offer them honed, have it figured out, and the buyer gets a pretty good shaver, and subsequent honing is nowhere near as difficult as setting that first bevel. That is my take on it. And I could be wrong.
Ironically, it was getting tough on the poorly ground Gold Dollar 66 that made me stop and think about getting medieval on the "Best Quality" razors. I didn't want to go nuts on a $70 razor, but it was sitting there useless anyway, so I treated it like a Gold Dollar and stopped worrying about what the spine would LOOK like and how consistent the bevel width was at the edge, and just made sure that there WAS a good bevel, pretty or not. A $70 price tag doesn't mean it is jewelry. That is what was hanging me up on those three Bests. Too bad I had long before tossed the first two. And the same way of thinking helped me to go back through my junk pile and turn blades I had given up on, into efficient shaving tools.
FACT... if you have a piece of good razor steel, you can make it shave. Master grinders are optional. It just sucks to pay for them when you aren't getting them. With a Bergischer Lowe or a Prima Klang or a Bismarck, you get your master grinder involved in the process and I do not regret the three Dovo Bismarcks that I bought new.
Feel free to regard this as pure conjecture but you have to admit the premise is compelling. And if I was in charge at Dovo, twisty, warpy, wonky razors would never leave the factory except as scrap.
@JOB15, you did the right thing. Instead of trying to make jewelry out of it, you made a working tool out of it. Pretty don't shave. Sharp shaves.