"By the tone of your post I assume that you have not experienced a night of strong wind or heavy rain inside a cheap tent compared with a Hubba or a Rainbow."

Funny you should ask.

I bought a coated nylon pup-tent 29 years ago for $19.99, and almost immediately used it for seven continuous weeks on a bike trip. Subsequently over a period of nearly ten years, it went on a number of week-long trips, and countless weekends.

When my friend unfortunately abandoned it in the jungles of Costa Rica in 1989, the floor had become transparent in places due to abrasion, mainly from beach sand, and the tent had seen plenty of inclement conditions.

I only remember two nights when weather caused difficulty. One involved a heavy snowstorm in April, and one involved a tropical storm a few yards from the beach in Nova Scotia (though protected by a spruce thicket) during which I realized a shortcoming in my seam sealing job that was later rectified.

I'm sure this tent was functionally similar to a "Wenzel Starlight" now available for $20 current dollars. Except that the Starlight is potentially lighter due to its tapered wedge design. However, if I owned a Starlight, I'd ditch the fiberglass poles, one of which I think is an "A-frame," This would save significant weight at no sacrifice of utility.

As to Hubba or Rainbow, I've never used them, but I've owned at least ten other backpacking tents by various "name brand" makers, and slept in a certain number of others. The old puptent was lighter than, for example, the old Sierra Designs Half Moon, which was advertised at about four pounds.

What I've got in mind for the Asian sweat shops, would be improvements on the "Starlight" style wedge tents, possibly to include mass-market dirt cheap SilNylon, which I don't think yet exists.

Free-standing tents are problematic as ultralights, expecially dirt cheap ones. BTW, doesn't North Face, and many others, use Chinese factories?