As for the OP...I'm definitely with him on a lot of his Glock frustrations. They seem to have little, if any, desire to actually make any aesthetic alterations from generation to generation. Nor do they seem to offer very many options that some would find appealing, like a production manual safety as one example.
Glock certainly has no lack of followers, so I guess there's something to be said for sticking to the basics and not going overboard with options.
I think the people at glock are terrified at doing anything cosmetically for fear of screwing up somewhere else inadvertently. It took 30 plus years for them to just slim up the frame a little with the 48, 43 and 43x. I bitched about that since 2002 cause I knew it could be done to make a slimmer single stack 9mm and I guess it will take another decade to slim up their 45/10mm.
They proved they could incorporate the manual safety with the Army prototype... that Sig won the contract for. And they do know that would actually sell a lot more for them if they made some with the manual safety. I don't know how many times I've heard someone say they won't consider a gun without a manual safety. They can be comfortable in their laziness for now I guess. lol