Creality made good printers in the beginning, i.e. original Ender and Ender Pro. They used high quality components and offered good value for money compared to what else what available at that time. However, when they had cornered a large part of the market and got known as the brand that made the best beginner printers, things started going downhill. They switched from Meanwell power supplies etc. to cheap noname components, quality control seemingly became non-existent, and they released several poorly designed overpriced printers (E.g. the E3v2 - my first printer - and everything with “max” in the name).

I think there’s a combination of different reasons for why there always have been so many people who believe that Creality make good printers:

1. People who have bought their Ender 3/Pro before 2020 actually have good printers, and give them honest praise on forums.
2. Fake reviews on the internet, which hype up the product since their only goal is for you to click their amazon affiliate link and buy it.
3. Creality paying content creators for positive reviews, including several well known and otherwise respected within the community.
4. Buyers who got lucky with the QC and don’t own any other printers to compare with, might think their printers are the best.
5. Buyers who are now happy with their Ender after having spent €100+ on “upgrades” and/or days of troubleshooting the printer. I’ve even seen a guy insist that an Ender is a better first printer than a cheaper more reliable alternative, because the 20 hours he spent on his Ender to get a decent print out of it gave him “an invaluable learning experience”.
6. And I’ve also seen people who haven’t yet bought any printer claim that Enders are the best beginner printers, just because they’ve read that statement so many times they’ve come to accept it as a fact, and now they’re “helping” others looking for a first printer by answering their questions.

I think my E3v2 is good now, but I’ve replaced the hotend, extruder and part cooling fans. I’ve added a second Z lead screw to fix gantry sag, and I found a manufacturing error where the X belt tensioner wasn’t straight because tightening the screw into the aluminium extrusion bent the plastic (difficult to find, but luckily easy to fix with a metal shim). I’ve replaced the firmware with Klipper, controlled by a Raspberry Pi. And I’ve probably spent at least 50 hours just trying to fix and improve the printer, which I didn’t mind btw, but I think most would prefer a printer which just works out of the box.

In retrospect, I wish I had joined some 3d printing discords and talked to experienced users before deciding on which printer to buy, and not relied so much on google, websites and random comments.