OK, I admit I was baiting you a bit with that subject line, but in all seriousness, I think one component of my "cheap" banjo seems to outperform that of my "expensive" banjo.
I bought my first banjo for $750 5 years ago: a Gold Tone White Ladye (WL-250). Two years later, I "upgraded" to an all-cherry version of the Ome Flora that cost triple what I paid for the Gold Tone. I put "upgraded" in quotes because, although by most objective standards the Ome would be considered superior, the fact is that I still like both of them very much, and will probably never part with either one. I like both of them pretty much equally, for different reasons.
My only problem with the Ome is its tuners. Both have planetary tuners. The Gold Tone's tuners have just the right amount of resistance and stay put very reliably. The Ome's on the other hand can barely make it through a song without dropping out of tune slightly. This is using fully broken-in strings, and happens even after accounting for the weirdness that normally follows things like moving the capo and changing tunings. I've tightened the tuning pegs with a screwdriver as much as I dare to attempt to for fear of breaking the pretty amber knobs, but the issue persists. For my somewhat sensitive ears, there's nothing like a tune played well with an optimally-tuned banjo, but I rarely get that from my Ome. (Of course I have to take 100% of the blame if it isn't played well, and probably half of the blame if it isn't optimally tuned, but if it's optimally tuned for a 2-minute song, it ought to be pretty darn close to that for the second 2-minute song, don't you think?)
It think the problem has pretty much always been there, but I the $2,250 I spent on it and the overall beauty of the instrument probably blinded me to the problem at first. I love the Ome, but this is a little disappointing for an instrument in this price range, especially when compared to the much less expensive Gold Tone that some people bad-mouth due to its Chinese parts. (I don't know where the Ome's tuners are made.)
I'll be contacting Ome about it, but I'm not sure I want to ship the banjo to them to resolve this issue. (Neither they nor my dealer are local.) I'm curious to hear any suggestions for fixing this, and any comments on the fact that in this one regard at least the Ome is outperformed by the Gold Tone that costs much less.