To provide a somewhat-contrasting anecdote, I've been dealing with Chinese factories (mostly in the Pearl River Delta area) for the last 3 years, manufacturing fairly high-tech products. We haven't had any of the problems you describe. We did our first small manufacturing runs sight-unseen with our initial partners and everything went well. I think the story of cratered Kickstarters has more to do with creators who have little experience in manufacturing and no clue what they're doing in China, rather than some intrinsic failing of Chinese factories.
There are plenty of ways to make your BOM work in your home country, but at least in the US it's surprisingly difficult to get low volumes (<5k units) manufactured economically.
There are plenty of ways to make your BOM work in your home country, but at least in the US it's surprisingly difficult to get low volumes (<5k units) manufactured economically.