The first 14” I picked up the other day had two scuffs around the bottom plate, near the screws. It also had a loose component inside the display which slammed left and right when I moved the laptop: that was an instant replacement for me. The second one is perfect but for a scratch above the function key row, where you can see the silver metal under the black keyboard’s coating: it is bugging me a bit but I don’t feel like risking my luck and loosing time to get a replacement that likely will have some minor imperfection too. At the end of the day, and I am not justifying Apple, I am looking at it this way: those are machines made to accomplish tasks, not designer clothes or precious paintings ( and those have imperfections too, nothing is 100% perfect in this world), so I’ll just enjoy it and get things done with it.
If some cannot live with any imperfection on their new MacBook and have the time to spend to get multiple replacements I don’t blame them, and yes one rightfully expects a new premium laptop to be just perfect, but is it worth all the stress and time?