2018 Rpod 180 review and sad farewell

It is my impression that lift and wheels/tires have been the only differences, and that the lift is now the same east and west. What other differences are there? 

Perhaps. Or it could simply be that more of them are produced in Indiana than in Oregon. Something like 80% of all RV's in the US are made in Northern Indiana. Anybody know the production rates at the two rPod production lines? 
 

Another area chosen by management is the design and engineering that goes into their products.  The original design concept of the R-Pod was for a small, economical, light weight travel trailer that could be towed by a mid-sized vehicle, thus a narrow body, super lightweight frame, and a light weight suspension.  Our 172 was exactly that and gave us few problems.  As other trailer companies began to enter the small lightweight trailer market, it seems that FR's R-Pod division decided to expand the length and width of their trailers and add slide outs to make them more roomy. Unfortunately, they apparently didn't re-engineer the chassis to accommodate the extra stress on the structure or the weight.  Most of the serious problems with their current product lines relate to the lack structural support for the coach cabin.  Now it has structural failures and leaks that are the the death knell of any wood based trailer cabin.  

It's impossible to know where the travel trailer business is going.  If demand slumps we may see more competition on quality and maintainability.  If the Covid related RV boom continues, there is little incentive for the RV industry to fix their quality deficiencies.  If I were rich and wanted to be in RV business, I'd look at importing some travel trailers from Europe, where the build quality seems to be a bit better and the prices competitive with US products.  This was the experience we had in the automotive world where imports pushed a lazy US manufacturing culture to build world class quality vehicles to compete with European and Japanese cars.