Out of curiousity - does anyone have any thoughts on why this occurs?

Certainly the factory has/had some qa/qc. I can't imagine a badly misaligned razor would leave the factory. Although mparker762 indicates that at least some did.

I was wondering if it were either:

a) initial assembly was too loose and to save money they let the boss's infant son whack on them to tighten them up.

b) the metal used for the original pins is/was substandard and normal assembly would warp them.

Josh, the pins that you've taken out. Are they softer than the pins you've replaced them with??