Has anyone else noticed how poor most Micro-Trains loads look? In comparison to their beautiful rolling stock, their loads often appear as if made with modeling clay. Or, as in the case of an SP gon I bought with a phone pole load, the poles are loaded to a ridiculously high height and braced with too few vertical members that would equate to puny 2 x 4's in dimension. It looks plain goofy. It's just an interesting contrast to the excellent loads offered by other manufacturers.
I see these loads as raw material for my own modeling, i.e. further improvement and at least painting. So far I bought most of them when they where available separately. Some of these loads are real heavy due to their size, so I tried to drill holes from the underside to reduce the overall weight.
They are, for the most part, crude in comparison to other manufacturers. Some of them are salvageable; others not so much. I often wondered why MT would release such a product because, as you state, they do not rise to the level of their rolling stock. I believe MT or an employee of theirs monitors this forum; maybe they can answer your question.
I don't consider MT loads to be RTR loads......some have to be assembled and none are painted. I like the option of NOT being stuck with what someone at MT thought would be a good color or level of weathering. And they offer loads that no one else does. The downside is if you don't like "do-it-yourself" projects, they are a little crude.
There's compromises at work here. The nicer quality the load (paint, finish, weight distribution), the more you pay. I would think there's a price point involved here. Most M/T loads are bare naked, but at least a train looks like it's carrying something. In the box, a buyer immediately knows what the car carries, if they're not into the prototype. "Undec" loads are not enough for me, but they can be improved. Then again, my wallet doesn't feel too bad about replacing and/or repurposing M/T loads if I decide to do that. M/T loads are made removable to the point sometimes where keyholes are cut to allow easy removal with a screwdriver or knife. To me, that's ugly. Further, 1:1 loads often have blocking and tiedowns. I prefer having empties (outbound) and loaded cars (inbound) for the same industry. I have more duplicated car types than I really need anyway, which I am sure is true for many others. That way, carefully built loads don't have to be disturbed, plus you and I can justify cars of different roads or variations for serving one industry. Considering where other brands are today, M/T could upgrade cars over time, include fully finished loads, and still be competitive in price.
To comment to the problem of train car loads. I have seen the same problems the molds need better Detail. I have found that some or most of the loads that have been 3D printed have required some better detail. using the Frosted Ultra and extreme Detailed material (FUD and FED). But these are done in 1:220 scale http://shpws.me/IRuL
It's also interesting that M/T loads are castings and not injection molded plastic for better detail. There are the significant tooling costs involved for plastic. But with painting/finishing added to plastic loads, they could look great RTR. Will people pay for that? Loads can also be properly weighted down low.
