I have no problem with manufacturers supply gear for testing, in fact that likely means that the gear is tuned as well as it possibly can be, which is the real first order question: "how does it work when all is the way it should be." What I'd like to see is a similar report (including a disassemble report) for those regulators after 100 dives and normal "gear bag abuse."
Yes and no.
For a high end reg made to closely specified tolerances, the range in performance within that model will be pretty small. I.e. most of them can be tuned to a similar highly performing standard, so a manufacturer chery picking one and expertly tuning it has a fairly small impact, as any good tech in the shop selling the reg should be able to produce a reg of similar performance.
On the other hand, a less expensive reg made to a wider range of tolerances and with a wider range of performance potential is an entirely different story. In that case, the company can cherry pick a reg with tight tolerances and/or where the tolerances stack in the right direction and with expert tuning can produce a reg that clearly performs in the right hand tail of the performance distribution curve. Testing of this hand picked reg then reg would then imply performance for the model that is well beyond what could be achieved by the average reg, exen if tuned by an expert tech.
As an example, I have seen some R390s that can deliver excellent inhalation effort, when the average R390 won't.
Consequently, I take test results on a high end reg like the Mk 25 S600 with a smaller grain of salt than I take test result on lower end "best value" regs. The latter would be far more credible if the regs was randomly selected, or even better results from a sample of regs were averaged.
As for the testing/dissasembly at 100 dives theory - if the reg is properly maintained, kept dry and fed clean gas, it would not make much difference and any meaningful results would be lost in the noise of user/usage variables and gas quality issues.
