The Valtro 1911's sold prior to a couple weeks ago were heavily breathed on. May still be. This is good for the customer who has them.
The one guy I know who has shot several, has shot them hard. It was his opinion that the pistol he tested finally was as good as you can get for the money.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the quality when sales start to out-strip what a guy can tweak. Then will be the time to make the call on that gun, imho. Valtro did not help itself much with some of the shotguns it brought into country, so far as reputation for quality is concerned. I hear though that even that is taking a turn for the better.
I am sure there are many good semi-custom [whatever that really means] pistols out there. I consider a semi-custom to be a less-than-full-house pistol, which would necessarily require one to consider all of the package guns built by Heinie, Vickers, Burns, Garthwaite, Wickmann, etc. That is damned tall clover for a Springfield, Kimber, Baer, Wilson, et al., "custom" shop to compete with.
Having now owned a BCP pistol similar to Dane's FED package gun sold through BCP and PT Partners, and having shot the blazes out of it without a failure, it would be my first choice in a sidearm priced under $2,000. That it sells for $400 or so under that mark, well, so much the better.
Really, instead of judging the class by the nebulous concept of "semi-custom", I think it is better to judge by price point, ie., a sub $1,000 pistol, a sub $1,500 pistol, a sub $2,500 pistol, etc.