No I got it, and I completely agree. It your bread and butter so you would only take up their business if you are protected. Thats fair enough.
But look at how flawed this model and what the casualty is. Inflated prices, no competition and also not all distributors are the same so quality of service is also suspect.
It defeats the very purpose it was supposed to fulfill.
Judged by who's metric ?
Why would you imagine any manufacturer can offer worldwide sales and timely support from a single base ?
I agree the model is not free of problems, but this is one of the good reasons why local distribution exists.
In my experience, dealing with local regulations and laws across the world is a very thorough process that will cost someone's time.
Regarding technical support: depending on the product itself, technical and design support are costly for the manufacturer and the distribution/rep network can help filter out the important questions and customers that will get most of the engineering time. This becomes particularly important in case the customer is strategic for the region, not worldwide.
The manufacturers could potentially try to leverage the various fora on the internet and I agree this is still a bit hit or miss (mostly miss), but the effectiveness and traceability in revenue is very difficult to track.
Anyways, good discussion.