I've had three piano tuners say of my piano, when first glancing at it, "That company makes crap pianos." One said, after tuning and playing it, that despite the company making crap pianos, this one was assembled by someone who knew what he was doing.

Three professional pianists, not looking at the piano but just playing it, said "This has great action. Nice tone, too. I love this piano."

I think there are instrument-repair snobs everywhere. Some are nice guys, some are prejudiced (one of the tuners who looked at it was my cousin who works for Steinway--needless to say, my piano's not a Steinway), and some are just jerks. But if the jerk fixes what's wrong better than the nice guy, I'd probably go back to him.