Fret dressing files are square and have four sides. Two of these sides are flat and smooth, designed to rest on the fretboard wood and not damage it while you are flattening and rounding the fret ends with the serrated sides. If the luthier was using one of those, he was using the right tool.
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You have to think it’s a factory of maybe 100 people, possibly 5 who are responsible for the frets and setup. And especially with the last two years, that group of people are making 1000 instruments per day, and they are already 2 months behind on orders. There are instrument manufacturers out there that will sweat every detail of a single instrument but they are not multinational corporations ran by CEOs
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I understand what you are saying but if you buy a Bass in the $1K to $2K range, you are spending the money, so they should be able to find the time to build it with a lot more detail to things like fret sprout and leveling. 
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@A1955Harley fret spout is an odd phrase because the frets don’t sprout the wood shrinks.
You can get perfect frets for reasonable money. Just don’t expect it from major manufacturers.
Here’s my Shijie guitar made in a very small factory in China. Roasted maple neck and perfect stainless steel frets and less than $700 when I bought it.
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Great frets on my instruments, none cost more than $700 new. Big humidity swings here.
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I’ve never played one of their basses but all the Yamaha acoustics I’ve ever held have been lovely and not stupid money. So those guys are definitely doing something right in their factory.
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My shecter (699 u.s. new) seems to handle humidity swings in Ohio like a champ. I was actually leaving the window open in the hotel a couple days a week to get air exchange while i was at work.
The ibanez (350 u.s. new) has zero problems. Smooth fret edges, zero issues there.
So i guess I’m really lucky in that, because i hear from people who pay a lot more that they get this.
So i guess i wonder if it’s an age thing? Add in it happens when the instrument gets a little age on it?
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One of mine is 18 years old 
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Yeah, so I’ve only had the Ibanez since last may it’s my grandsons now, but I’m here with him, so I’m going to play it.
My shecter i got in August or September maybe-so being brand new to any instruments at all, this all news to me. But I’ll be looking for it now for sure.
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Yamaha is amazing at eliminating variation in manufacturing and studying product life cycles and rolling that back into product designs. This is one of their biggest selling points. Some folks say this takes the “soul” out of the instrument. Not true for bass, but I have to agree with it on saxes and even trumpets. That said, this works very well for the classical crowd where “soul” is not welcome.
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Except when it comes to the likes of a Stradivarius or other instrument equivalent.
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I get you, my contact at Fender tells me Fender expects the instrument to have no issues like that no matter what the price point is. He also told me they have no control over quality. What he said was the factory supplies them a 100% satisfaction at the customer level. They will reimburse Fender for any instruments a customer isn’t satisfied with. He told me we don’t want the instruments back either so we leave them with the seller to cover their handling and shipping cost. They resell them as open box or lower grade and make money on them and the guy who can’t afford a more costly instrument gets something he is happy with and in the long run everything made is sold and everyone is happy about what they got. Now us guys who expect if we pay good money for something when it gets here we don’t want to have to rebuild it. I have bought new instruments knowing I will have to do some work on them because of a lower price point.
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You said the key words…CEO…those people who do “NOTHING ALL DAY” but suck a huge salary out of a company, They contribute not one bit of value and most times have not a clue what the people do. I used to work for one of those big companies and saw the waste in management every day. From my perspective it’s time we got away from this kind of company management. Most get to where they are thru the “Good Old Boy” system.
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Kinda hard to do if you are dealing with a large manufacturer. They probably all have CEO and CFOs.
Apparently Yamaha has been around since 1887 when they produced their first reed organ. What I can’t figure out is how Yamaha has managed to produce quality instruments, at a decent price, with very few issues in quality control for so long.
Gibson was founded in 1902 but declared Bankrupcy in 2018 and purchased in 2018 by KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strategic partners, hedge funds.
In 1972 when I started playing guitar everything was Fender and Gibson. Now you rarely hear about Gibson although they do make Electric Basses. The cheapest one I could find was $999 US.
https://www.gibson.com/en-US/Guitar/USACYC512/Les-Paul-Junior-Tribute-DC-Bass/Worn-Brown
Fender was founded in 1946 but has also undergone a few ownership changes with majority ownership now being held by Servco Pacific in 2020.
C.F. Martin a lot older than Yamaha and was founded in 1833 and still going strong in the acoustic market. Not so much in Electric Bass.
The history of Guitar and Bass manufacturing companies has undergone a lot of changes in ownership and it appears only Yamaha and C.F. Martin have retained their original ownership.
Yamaha and C.F Martin are obviously doing something right to remain in business so long. IMHO
Yes I am a Yamaha fan 
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I think you answered your own question.
When you maintain control of your company privately, and, know what you are doing, you might just be successful.
Same story across many industries - get bought, get cost reduced, go down.
Conn (my favorite saxophones) was a casualty of this.
A couple of buyouts in history turned them into a cheap student instrument maker losing all the things Conn was that everyone else wasn’t.
Look at Land Rover - they used to make beautiful vehicles, then…Fords.
Etc etc etc
Yadda Yadda Yadda
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@John_E the same as British Leyland who produced the mighty Austin Allegro. How can a company that produced something this beautiful go bankrupt.
Seriously though. Yamaha just needs to make a P Bass copy like everyone else and they’d sell a bunch. I love their QC but their design hmmmm not so much. To each his own.
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Sir you are truly a trolling master. Do you have a newsletter?
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Maybe the fact that Land Rovers and Jaguars are among the least reliable vehicles on the road have something to do with it.
They are both legendary in their breaking down.
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Count me among them - had a local guy literally break a tuning machine on my Schecter - SMH.
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Ouch!!!
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