[stoppingdown]

I don't know about Sony Australia, but the "terrible QC" - that is, wild sample variance - explains very well the reason for which this lens is such a love/hate thing. There are many good reviews around, but also many bad reviews, and PZ's one is not the first one. It's probably the first one to have spotted the problem in numbers.

 

Explanations about this lack of QC? I can speak for my experience, but: marketing. At the end of 2013 I was evaluating a mirrorless system and the thing boiled down to Sony vs Fuji. It was really a close call, but one of the thing that made me pick Sony was the announcement of the 16-70mm: perfect range for my needs, definitely better than the 16-55mm offered by Fuji, and even though you can't evaluate a lens at announcement time, "it couldn't be bad" because of the Zeiss badge. 

 

In the end, I got a decent copy of the SEL-1670, even though I'm not totally ok. But, in the end, I'm also ok with the Sony pick, for a number of other reasons (however, I still think Fuji is an excellent system and when I have to advice a friend I suggest to evaluate both Sony and Fuji). 

 

If my personal experience is shared by others, with this strategy Sony got a lot of whiners, sure, but also a number of customers.