[JohnKSa]

Please consider that the auto glass in your Honda effectively blocks almost all UV sunlight so that is to be expected.

Regardless of the amount of UV getting through the autoglass (which is more or less identical from one car to another), some dashboards stand up to it for many years while others crack relatively quickly. The point is that if the manufacturer is dedicated to producing a quality product, they can make it last. If not, it's going to be a disappointment to the owner.

Quality plastic will last longer but the sun will "win."

Sure, it will win, but if the manufacturer cares about making a durable product, the sun won't win in your lifetime or your children's lifetime, and likely not even in their children's lifetime. Even if it's left in the sun all day, every day.

...it's all about business

Politics had more to do with the M-9 being chosen than most realize.

For that to be true, the entire pistol trials would have had to have been faked. I'm not saying it couldn't have been done, but think about the huge number of people who would have had to have known about the faked trials and also would have had to remain silent for the last 30 years or so. It could have been done, but it couldn't have been done and kept quiet for this long.

The Beretta is a good gun, so was / is the Sig, Ruger & S&W that were considered. Politics.

There was no Ruger pistol considered in the trials, and the S&W offering failed the performance trials based on an both an unacceptably short service life and insufficient firing pin energy. Where are you getting the information that you're using to arrive at the conclusions you have stated as fact?

The fact is that only two of the 8 entrants completed the performance testing and proceeded to the price competition. 4 were terminated for failing to perfom in one or more aspects of the competition, 2 voluntarily withdrew and the 2 remaining were deemed technically acceptable finalists. Moreover, of those two deemed to be technically acceptable finalists, one (SIG) was allowed to pass even though it failed an aspect of the performance testing. That was done so that there would be two competitors in the pricing competition.