I take it a whole different way than has been posted here.
Had I known then, what I know now, I myself would not buy a new Airstream. I would still have bought an Airstream, but I would have bought a preowned one. I say this from the standpoint, I paid top dollar for what I thought was a well engineered product. It has been nearly nothing what I had expected for the price paid (nor was the 2003 Bambi I bought just before trading to the current unit, thinking the Bambi was a lemon). Corrosion is my main gripe, but there have been others. Take a look at the QC threads for example, this one that I link, has links to models back to 2004:
http://www.airforums.com/forums/f142...ity-41668.html
All that said if you buy a new one and even get the standard 19% off retail, in two years you will have a unit that has depreciated significantly. For example, I picked up my '04 which the base unit retailed at $39,143. The same model now retails for around $46k. My unit now, 4 years later (or 5 model years) is now worth about $24k. Now if I had a few issues, so be it, but as my corrosion issues get worse, it will further loose value.
Now in my mind, if I spent $25k on my unit now and it had some issues like it has, I would not feel as bad as I do, having spent around $40k on my unit and having this issue, which IMHO is a significant issue.
I totally agree that this issue alone if I were in your shoes would give me pause too, let alone some of the QC issues that still happen......