Despite matching serials, the veneer on my pair is fairly amateur work. Not only do the L & R cabinets differ, but the top/bottom within the same channel are poorly matched.
I'm not losing any sleep over it at their price point.
With all due respect, what was written above about the pittance it would cost to produce the jrs with a 'high-quality' finish just ain't so. A couple extra coats of cheap poly will not look any more impressive and will scratch as easily as one (there are already more coats of sealer and top coat than what you might think.) The cost of some better urethane is cheap enough, but the element of cost is time. A quality several step finish cannot be applied in an hour. No possible way. You're talking days. That costs money.
One species of veneer is only a couple pennies more than another, but when you take into consideration the cost of a higher grade of veneer (one of the major problems here), sorting, waste and hiring someone who knows what they are doing to do the matching, you're talking money. I don't have specific dollar amounts here, but just a jump from 'B' to 'AA' veneer is going to triple or quadruple the cost. That ain't hay.
If VSA could magically transform a cheap finish into one of high-quality at the cost of a lousy $100 to the end user, they would do so in a heartbeat. They would be stupid to ignore a simple, cheap solution to one of the model's greatest weaknesses.
By the way, take a look some Chinese furniture next time your out shopping. None of it I've ever seen is what I would call 'furniture quality.'