Well that's sort of the point here - many phones seem to be damaged in some way out of the box, let alone after use. You say you can't make everything perfect - well I don't remember problems like this with any previous generation iPhone. I design and manufacture product myself and know full well that I sometimes have to change things if production proves to be problematic. I don't expect my customers to excuse poor quality, especially at high prices.
You will always have a number of faulty items slip through the net, usually a very low percentage - from the fuss being made it seems like the iPhone 5 has more issues than previous generations.
What fuss? The 1000 or so OCD users on a fanboy (myself included, no offense) forum on the internet??? That's not a fuss. That's a whine by a teeny tiny percentage of users (and remember, usually only complainers post anyway, the happy folks have no reason to come on and spout off about everything being "fine").
And if you don't remember problems with previous generations that's mighty selective of you... The Original iPhone had that awful chrome bezel (that if it didn't have scratches out of the box it would within hours...), 3G/S had a plastic back that often cracked on the edges where it met the phone's body AND had the bezel issues too, and the 4 had ANTENNAGATE, yellow screen "gate" and glass that people couldn't help themselves from breaking! Even the 4S had "batterygate" and blue/yellow screen "gate" even if it solved "antennagate".
None of these were "real" problems unless you buy into the whole forums being reality thing. If that's the case Apple would be out of business by now with all the disasters it's facing...
This "none of my old iPhones had any problems out of the box" LIE, is a lot like remembering ex-girlfriends. If you find a flaw with your current gf the memory of your ex gets a little more rosey...