I would generally agree with this, however I do find the esp32 on the whole has been as reliable as any of the major brands (although haven't had to use an ADC). We don't drive them too hard though, but their cheapness has pushed the bigger guys to get more competitive on pricing which is a good thing. TI in particular seems to have sharpened their pencil a bit, maybe due to all their new fabs coming online?

The big guys still screw up, and over the journey I've noticed quite a few MCU subfamilies go EOL far before they should and it's usually due to silicon that has too many bugs in it. Maybe the big guys told them 'no' so there weren't any decent volumes on them anymore and they were forced to adapt.

Sometimes they're a bit more subtle. You've probably seen quite a few 'A' revision part numbers recently where they clearly keep the same MCU but fix the bugs. See this on other IC's as well.

For us, logistics (supply chain) and a solid support team are the highest importance. It's rare that we're locked into a single vendor due to a must-have-feature. These requirements narrow down our choices very quickly, and I'm sure it varies region-by-region (and how much $$$ you spend).