Its journalism not research, this is absolutely the norm for any type of product coverage, e.g "my [press] car (with 50k in upgrades) had an incredible sound system, the cabin noise was non-existent, and the ($2000 extra) paint looks incredible). Even wirecutter does n=1 coverage, and it shows! You expect all LL Bean sheets to feel the same?! They probably ship a million sets a year.
Good point that reviews tend to be n=1. But reviewing a car is different than doing investigative journalism on a "tip" about jeans bought on Amazon, and dismissing it.
I don't think anyone is alleging that BMW is cutting corners on materials shipped to only some dealers for a given market.
Nor is anyone alleging that there's counterfeit Ferraris constantly being snuck onto dealer lots.
What happened here looks closer to lowbrow propaganda or PR, than journalism.
And I suspect that any kids reading pieces like this -- rather than learning from good example -- are instead being confused about journalism, science, and critical thinking.
It's still bad journalism. Given the inherent nature of variances in garment manufacturing, individual fitment, and item cost, they should've at least done a sample size of 3.
Please also don't use The Wirecutter as an example of good journalism. It's the worst of a bad lot of Consumer Reports clones with all the disincentives of rapid-fire constant publication and ad-driven revenue. It was bad prior to the NYT acquisition, but it's "bottom of the barrel" atm.
Much akin to CNBC for securities, it's now just a source of noise and, occasionally, even negative signal.
So yeah its annoying, but you get used to it.