No its not just the rec/reg unit that is poor quality. The actual PMA itself can have soldering problems and other meltdowns of wiring.Thanks for the link, full of good info.
In my case the part that failed was part of a kit, so my Reg/Rec was supposedly a matched part.
My PAMCO is doing great, has worked great on both the older charging system and also with the PMA. The achilles heel of this PMA kit seems to be the Reg/Rec quality. I want to replace that with the best option there is.
The only option to get a high quality PMA is to buy high quality parts and that means buy Japanese parts.
A member called mrriggs has a lot of good experience using Japanese parts:
http://www.xs650.com/threads/how-to...p-also-known-as-the-banshee-swap.5536/page-13