Glock has many die hard fans, myself included who expect the world from them. When I buy a Glock I expect it to work every time. In my mind a Glock is the AK-47 of pistols. And from using many over the past 10+ years I have seen almost only great things from them.
Glock knows that us gun fans are gossip queens and that the market is already very clicky. Despite knowing this they released a product that clearly isnt ready yet to be viewed by the masses to presumably rush a deadline. Well, that was a big mistake because now this thing is going to be known for what we see now today, not after its fixed. It will take years to get rid of it as a mainstream meme.
Sig did the same thing with the P320 and the gun going off when it wasnt supposed to thing. It was probably rushed to get into the military trial.
I ran a Glock 17L out of the box for a class recently and guess what? The factory "lube" wasnt enough even for light use. And I was pretty annoyed about it. My G34 can run literally indefinitely without being cleaned or lubed (I have never had a point where it was having issues due to being dirty, or issues at all, actually). I'm not exactly sure why the 17L has to be lubed up like the dirty boy it is but it needs to be. Probably something to do with the slide length and weight. I expected it would work just like my 34, and I lost just a tad bit of faith in it.
Guns need to work everytime. That should be the baseline to aim for.
45 GAP? Yep.
I think it was well intentioned, very similar to .357 SIG. S&W did it with success with .40 after flopping with 10mm, so it's easy to see the attraction to attempt to make a new mainstream round. I'm not a .45 guy since I have the smallest hands on an adult male to ever hold a firearm.
On that note, I'd like to recognize you for correctly naming my G42
PPS: you were in the Navy so we are both at a minimum at least as gay as each other.