Over the years I have worked for 9 different manufacturers of electrical equipment in one capacity or another. The manufacturer I work for
always sells the
best material. When I leave and go to work for a competitor, the stuff I used to support for the old employer becomes crap, the new stuff becomes the best. My favorite line over the years whenever I take a new job:
"Forget what I told you last week, THIS is the truth
now."
My point is, everything is subjective. If someone were to create a website making judgements on quality / acceptability of equipment, anyone on the bottom of the list (or even just not on the top) would probably sue them to stop the publication. Win or lose the suit, the website developer would still lose in legal fees, because big companies have deep pockets and staff lawyers with nothing better to do.
Generalities:
1) Caveat emptor, which is Latin for "Let the buyer beware", indicating that this concept goes back to the Roman times. It boils down to "You get what you pay for" because in most cases if someone is significantly cheaper, there is probably a reason. Not always, but usually.
2) The bigger and/or long lived the company, the more they stand to lose from a bad reputation, so the more vested they are in maintaining quality. If a company has been around for decades selling a product, it's a fair bet that it is a reasonable product, otherwise they would not survive. Small companies often pop up and sell cheap, then disappear before the s### hits the fan. Again, not ALWAYS the case, but often. The Internet has sparked a new wave of smaller/cheaper/faster resellers, especially from China where there is no recourse for the buyer.
3) All that said, there are companies that trade on their name recognition, but don't (or no longer) actually make the products they sell. So sometimes when you are buying a well known brand, you are really buying something made by someone else and paying for the name.
In this case, assuming you are looking at transformers (because that's what Acme sells), Sq. D / Schneider does make most of their own transformers (they bought a company called Sorgel decades ago). So does Acme. The Sq. D transformers are probably a little better, but I think you would be hard pressed to notice a difference. Acme transformers hold up just fine, otherwise they wouldn't survive in our industry. There might, however, be subtle differences in things like efficiency and temperature rise, things like that worth considering.
