You're probably going to have to pay your money, and take your chances ... but it's really that way with just about any firearm, over the long term.
Of the 4 folks that I can remember off hand that brought P-11's to our range for qualification ... 3 non-L/E for CCW and one L/E for off duty qualification ... only one of them were able to complete a minimum course of fire without any malfunctions.
I don't know what that means, if it means anything. Four examples aren't enough to draw any valid conclusions from, statistically speaking.
Just as a half dozen examples of pistols that function flawlessly aren't enough to categorically say that this performance is guaranteed to be representative of all models ...
Would 125 excellent owner reports be sufficient to offset 25 poor owner reports? You have to decide for yourself where to draw the line, if a line has to be drawn ...
I watched a man experience at least one failure to extract, per each magazine load of 6 rounds, when shooting a P-11 recently for a CCW qualification course ... and yet, when I borrowed that same pistol and fired 2 fully loaded magazines, using 147gr JHP ammunition, versus the 115gr FMJ the owner was using when the malfunctions occurred, I didn't experience a single failure to extract in 20 rounds. I did experience a failure-to-fire which required a second trigger stroke, though. Then again, we've experienced somewhere approaching approx a dozen such failures-to-fire with this last shipment of training ammunition, and in different pistols ... so who's to say what's actually responsible for the "malfunctions" in any exact instance?
During that session, as coincidence would have it, there was another P-11 on the range, and it was in the hands of the man standing immediately next to the fellow experiencing the malfunctions ... and THAT P-11 was the one I initially mentioned that completed the course of fire without any malfunctions whatsoever.
You have to remember that when it comes to semiauto pistols, though, that the firearms manufacturers have NO control over two critical aspects ... the person shooting the firearm, and the ammunition used in it. A significant majority of malfunctions experienced with semiauto pistols are often determined to be caused by either the shooter, or the ammunition.
Shooter-induced malfunctions can be as "simple" as failing to provide a firm & stable shooting grip for an ultra-lightweight, reduced size, polymer framed pistol, too.
On the other hand, I wouldn't want to always bet on getting the same level of production quality when comparing $200, $400 & $600 pistols, either. Sometimes you really might get "all" that you pay for ... or are willing to pay for.
No matter what you decide to buy, you need to maintain it properly, and shoot a reasonably sufficient number of rounds of whatever your preferred "service" ammunition may be, in order to determine whether that particular pistol & ammunition are suitable for your needs.
As was mentioned, there's been quite a number of thread topics involving this subject, here ... and among the various firearms boards. Why not run a Search on several of the forums and see what you find that's already been discussed?
Try these others to start ... in addition to the older TFL archives ...
http://glocktalk.com/
http://www.warriortalk.com/
http://www.pistolsmith.com/index.php