Yes it is almost like your insulting their ancestry if you notice the defects and huge rusted out sections. I worked for the UN for 10 years. We had "name cannot be spoken" POS's given to us new all the time. Why? Well most folks don't really understand how the system works. US says they are giving 5 million in aid. It is not money, but rather 5 million in, lets say grain. So the USDA buys grain on one program or another, stores it in some giant silo. After 5 years it gets kind of nasty, so we "donate" it to some poor country. We peg the price to the highest price and say it is worth 5 million. Of course if you tried to sell it on the real market it would fetch 1/10 of that as it has been reduced to low animal feed quality. Now Japan plays this game as well. They donate Land Cruisers, high end Land Cruisers, with all kinds of stupid accessories (all of witch fall off in short order). They do the high end ones as they have the highest markup. They naturally get them for a steep discount, but peg the donation price at full retail.
My last one (UN) was such a POS, a newish turbo diesel, whose 3rd gear (a common problem in nearly every one I had) would constantly fail in low range. Now on a series Land Rover, the tranny would occasionally get a personality, but they would still drive, even stuck in gear (you can shift from high to low, giving you a two speed tranny). LC's just squat on the ground and will not move if the gearing fails. I was south of Mogadishu, just outside of Merka in Somalia. Out of handi talki range. Pissed, so I racked a round in my AK (yes most of us kept one in a crevasse in the vehicle, even though we weren't supposed to have one. They only cost $40 anyhow) I emptied 2 of my three magazines into it. Our motor pool guy, Ahmed Yousef, cool guy, was a bit skeptical about my "Bandit" story but gave me a combat Toyota Corolla in its place. Which surprisingly was a better car. Nobody tried to carjack us in it, they wanted 4WD cars.
Now fast forward a few years. I am in Borneo, one of the most rugged places I have ever worked. Serious jungle and mountains. The only thing we could get was, you guessed it LC's. New turbo diesels, again, sigh. Out of the six, three failed their trannies in the first 4 weeks, one had a brake caliper fall off...fall off! One rolled upside down crossing one of the rivers. So no, I don't like them much. At my billing rate, they are too expensive due to the downtime and aggravation. All cars turn to POS's if you thrash them off road daily, it just comes down to how long to reach the "just decorating the side of the trail " state or keep on kind of running. Landies have let me down far less than the rest. Heck I even had an Isuzu Trooper nearly crack in half from not so great roads. The unibody cracked right behind the B pillar, both sides top and bottom. The rental agency was really thrilled when they got that one back in Nairobi.
I read the forums posts from, well let us say "wankers" whining about their software updates and such. SOFTWARE UPDATES, SOFTWARE UPDATES! Yeah, good luck with that when your in the Tankwa Desert. Just be happy it steers, brakes, and goes back and forth in all the gears. AC is cool as well. Pretty much everything else, useless BS born to fail in the field. Yes I do have another Defender (number 10 on order arriving in January).