Where have you been, on another planet? ;-)  The adequate (never large) SQA depts all but disappeared in the mid- to late-80's.  But you can't "test in" quality, it has to be developed with a quality focus in the first place.  Testing can veto release, *if* the bugs are found, but only if they can get their voice heard over project managers/bean counters/marketing depts.

The real issue you should be highlighting is not the capability of "quality control (sic) departments" but the software development talent.

Could there be a connection to the amount of relatively recent offshore development, and layoff of older/senior/experienced developers onshore?  You think?  It's not to say that offshore or lower cost staff are naff per se, but anything that puts a large geographic and/or time distance between the company and its designers is going to make quality harder to achieve, esp. if the time to market constraints remain the same.

Manufacturing has been exported to lower cost locals for years with success, but how often is the whole hardware design team exported too successfully?  This is the corrollary to software, outsourcing your detailed product design.  And without even a rigorous definition language a la mechanical drawings, schematics and document control depts.