D600 dust accumulation time-lapse

I've been following camera manufacturers for a while now, and the thing that never ceases to amaze me is all the praise heaped on Nikon.

I'm actually not really a fanboy and have no brand loyalty to speak of, but I've never understood the appeal of Nikon. I have multiple Sony, Panasonic, Canon, and Olympus cameras. And the strange thing is, of all these companies, Nikon is the only one almost entirely devoted to cameras, yet they still never seem to get it right (at least in my eyes).

Let's start with their P&S offerings. They quite literally produce some of the most unusable compacts I've ever seen. I've always argued that they milk their DSLRs to sell poor quality compact cameras. So, one would think that Nikon would do DSLRs really well. Yet it seems they get more complaints than just about any other manufacturer, from dust to autofocus. It seems they're lacking in the QC department. And, regarding video, it's abundantly clear that Sony, Panasonic, and even Canon can do video a lot better than Nikon. It's only in their top of the line DSLRs that they're even competitive. Forget about using a Nikon P&S for video. And, this likely stems from the fact that they've never had any presence in the camcorder market.

To top it off, Nikon is almost entirely dependent on Sony (for sensors) to get the type of DxO rankings that they get. Sure, they could buy from another manufacturer, but they would lose any edge they have over Canon if they did so. I've always hoped that Sony would eventually leave Nikon high and dry regarding sensors, so Nikon would have to fend for themselves.

What do I believe this all stems from? The problem with Nikon is they're smaller than any of these other big name manufacturers. They simply can't compete regarding R&D and QC. And it really shows. And what bothers me is that due to this unwarranted praise, Nikon actually takes away from manufacturers who are more competent.