Could you elaborate on this opinion?
Happy to.
Colt ownership was all over the map since the crippling UAW strike in the late '80s. To their credit, Colt invested heavily in new tooling for the model O (the 1911 line) around that same time period, replacing WWI-vintage production tooling. That alone was responsible for a quantum improvement in quality and fewer hand-fitting processes, but the lingering problem was that the talented and experienced work force at the time was out walking picket lines for 4+ years.
The strike ended with the sale of Colt to investors, including the Connecticut state pension fund and the UAW. None of those owners was interested in firearms, just profits. With the loss of big military contracts in the early 90's, Colt was again on the verge of bankruptcy and new investors took the company over. They put some "gun people" into key roles, but it was too little too late, and with the lingering stink of "scab built" guns (few of us gunnies in CT wanted Colts back then), sales just never returned to serious profitability. Ruger, Glock and S+W took not only the sure-money cop market, but the "civilian" market as well.
In the late '90's, one of the top execs at Colt made a profound statement about how "'civilians" [I put the word in quotes because some military person picked on me for using the word to differentiate between cops and non-cops. ] should have to undergo Federal training and licensing to own a gun. There was a hue and cry about that statement, and I believe those were "career-limiting" words for that individual. But a lot of us took that to mean that at its heart, Colt was simply not interested in civilian sales of modern, high-quality firearms. There is more than a vestige of this sentiment which remains, as you will read "Law Enforcement Only" on the receivers of the 6900-series carbines, which are perfectly legal in the majority of states. Colt will only advertise its fixed-stock AR models to the civilian shooters.
Meanwhile, the Colt revolver line was discontinued because the production tooling was at end-of-life, and would require a significant investment to replace. With the handgun market dominated by autoloading pistols, the profitability wasn't there, so the Cobras and Pythons and Dick Specials all went away.
About the only new products Colt produced which worked well and were popular in the marketplace were the Mustang-Pony-PocketLite and Government .380 series pistols. These were discontinued during the Clinton era and corporate politics played a part (i.e., Colt thought they would buy favor with the Clinton administration by discontinuing an obviously concealable pistol).
Back to the mainstay of the remaining Colt line, the Model O. The new tooling and manufacturing processes helped maintain profitability, but the majority of the "gun people" making those guns were gone after the strike and the downsizing. Again, there were no gun people running the company either, and quality has simply suffered. It remains to be seen if the new Colt boss - a retired Marine general - can turn them around.
Most of the quality comments do not apply to the Colt AR-style carbines, primarily because this is a late 20th-century design, and newer and more robust (fault-resistant) manufacturing processes were dictated by the original customer, the US military. ARs simply do not demand the level of skill in final assembly and fitting that revolvers and 1911s do.
In contrast, Kimber grew based on their reputation as a producer of high-end, semi-custom rifles and expanded their product line into handguns. They are a company created by gun people and run by gun people, and pay attention to their markets without having to kiss union butts or curry political favor. There have been a couple of quality hiccups along the way, like the external extractor which appeared several years ago but which lasted maybe 2 years at the most (lots of field problems). Isolated examples of "they couldn't fix my gun" exist, but overall they are committed to expanding their market and you don't do that by ignoring customer problems. We still don't really know who owns Colt these days (we know it's Zilkha, but we don't "know" them as we know Edelman, the owner of Kimber).
If someone gave me a Colt pistol made in the last 10 years, I wouldn't turn it down; they are not a bad pistol but they just haven't kept pace with the market or the industry, and they are top-dollar guns.