I don't know about a number of the mistakes or faults you are describing which illustrates why I'm avoiding mechs. vaping is being attacked so there can be a reluctance to talk about things it would be useful to know. May be there are minor health issues we aren't hearing about because the effected vapers worry about government interference. Flavor makers hesitate to be as candid as they might be for the same reason. On another level, if you ask about DIY in this forum you are directed to getting started guides that are so complex the beginner is sure it's too much trouble. That delayed me starting DIY by 3 months. Everybody has their agenda and that seems to be especially true when it comes to vaping.
Why not address fake battery issues with a unique identifier that you get by optical scanning or NFC then go to a website to see if that exists in a manufacturer's database. Lots of products are protected that way.
As far as business ethics. Some things just aren't made in America. When I bought off shore the headache was getting the manufacturer to simply live up to his side of the deal. That was an issue I never had with my US suppliers.
As far as exploiting labor, you can abuse people but the price you pay is in product quallity. When I needed to fill a position I would decide what the job needed to pay to get the quality of work required then try to find someone who was capable of earning that money. If that was too much money I'd re engineer the product or the production process. I would send an agent to an offshore factory to take photos of assembly workers at work to see working conditions and worker attitudes. This was not because I'm some do gooder but because if their lives aren't good enough they can't do good work for me.
Emphasized some of your high points above. Only mistakes or faults I refer to are more related to ethics than eng/QC, agreed. Consumers of non-Western production need to be aware of the potentials for differences. Western companies these days are not immune to indifference either as Volkswagen demonstrated. Too much and too far off topic to discuss here. Average consumer says a battery's a battery and that's sufficient for some to conclude it conforms to a standard wherever made. Those days are over. Sources, not just the maker, matter. Applies to vendors as well. Only way I see of mitigating risk is consumer education on battery issues...and basic functional aspects of our vaporizers. Regulatory over-reaction would only compound the problem IMO. Still in context, the prevalence of incident is certainly small despite so much direct rather unfiltered supply. We've been rather fortunate, I think. And that's a testament to the community. My rant as you likely may see is about the promoted urge to excess which only makes a responsible perspective of vaping and vapers by others less tenable.
Good luck.