Guys (and gals), I've called Darrel's attention to this thread, so hopefully he'll chime in. I've also sent the OP Darrel's personal contact info, since going through the usual customer service/repair folks didn't resolve the issue.
As some of you know, while I'm nominally one of the mods on the DDR/HTM forum, I've haven't been around much for the past year or more due to real-life obligations (doctoral thesis) that have put my knife collecting and forum-ing almost completely on hold. I just happened to check in today and see this thread linked to from the HTM forum. Also, and again as many of you know, I'm just a knife nut who became friends with Darrel when I met him at a show; I don't (and never have) worked for HTM in any capacity, so unfortunately I can't provide any insight into what's going on on the production and customer service/repair side of things.
Speaking as a knife guy rather than a mod, it's really sad to see that despite numerous promises HTM's QC and repair issues continue. As a few of you mentioned above, something has obviously been lost as Darrel has expanded from a very successful custom-only operation where he's directly involved in every part of the process to production knives where he doesn't have that sort of direct oversight. Hopefully the fact that threads like this continue popping up will provide the long-overdue impetus for the changes at the company that will get them back on track. Darrel makes a hell of a custom knife and has some of the best designs in the business, but until these issues are genuinely resolved even I wouldn't be comfortable buying a HTM knife sight unseen, and I certainly don't blame the others in the thread who have expressed a similar sentiment.