I was thinkin' about this stuff the other day...
About GAD, well, I wasn't that delighted to see Guild building in China, but it's a step others have taken too. How long ago was it that all those sub-$1000 laminated "Martins" hit the market? I'm sure Martin sells more of those than they do of the D-28s and D-35s, and I'm sure they make more money at it. Manufacturers have to go there to keep the ship afloat.
Of course Martin won't stop making high-end guitars, even if they only break even with them, and if anyone at FMIC has half a brain (admittedly unproven at this stage) they won't stop building high end US Guilds either. It seems to me that from the money-making standpoint, it's the high end instruments that provide the brand clout that sells the cheaper ones. The more quality players are out there with good Guilds, the more new players are going to be looking at them and thinking "I want a Guild too". If those new players buy a Guild, it will probably be a GAD, because they can afford it, it looks right, and truth is it probably doesn't sound or feel half bad, and they will probably get a quite decent guitar for the money. FMIC does have a real financial incentive to keep the US Guilds coming at a high quality level, even if they aren't earning a whole lot on those instruments.
As far as discovering that they don't own the factory... well, isn't it possible that they knew that all along, and thought they had a viable long term lease deal, or whatever, but that the deal ended up falling through? The move does seem a bit irrational, but barring the lively possibility that the FMIC crowd are a bunch of loonies, sometimes when things seem irrational there's something in the picture that we're not seeing. Maybe when FMIC moved Guild to Tacoma they had every intention of staying there, but things changed in some unexpected way that made the deal not viable?
Speculation, of course...