As for bigger distributing brands not doing their own setups I personally agree that a guitar should not be shipped setup as the change in humidity and temperature can change the setup entirely and in the case of the truss rod being tight when shipping may warp or damage the neck so it's better to rather have it setup in your climate
>☹ Sorry, but that is the kind of crap Gibson peddle to try and excuse the fact that they don't bother setting up their guitars. As mentioned in another thread it is impossible to do quality control unless a guitar is setup first. How do you check the frets if the action is high, the string radius is wrong and the truss rod is not set correctly?
So what happens is a guitar lands at it's destination and when it is set up, you discover that the frets are uneven (or even in the wrong damn place!), the neck angle is wrong, the bridge is in the wrong position and cannot be intonated - I've seen all of these things repeatedly in the course of repairing guitars for the local Gibson distributor. Gibson doesn't give a shit, because it's the distributor that carries the cost, not them - it's not worth shipping a guitar back. They are essentially foisting off their QC reject costs onto the distributor.
All a manufacturer need do is set it up properly in the factory, then drop the tuning a tone and slacken the truss by a 1/4 turn and it's perfect for shipping. On the other side all that then needs doing is a quick tweak and a tune up and 99.9% of the time everything will be right.
The guitar and it's neck are designed to withstand changing weather conditions up to the extremes in temperature and humidity. That's the whole reason there is a truss rod in a guitar neck in the first place. Slacking the truss off completely makes it
more susceptible to damage from extremes as you have just removed all the support and reinforcement from the neck.
If a neck warps during shipping, it was quite simply not made properly in the first place.
Now look - you've got me all a lather (the likes have not been seen since the great silicon polish debacle a few months ago). 😀