It's crazy isn't it? The prices on these things these days makes me sick as it is lol, let alone paying these prices and seeing this crap. I'm honestly not sure on the longevity on the decals, but the pattern they use for the Predator is so basic that even if it does flake in some parts its an easy fix as it's literally just random black dots lol. A sealer over it should protect it.
The use of decals is no secret though, so I won't give Prime 1 crap for it. They've been doing it for a while and they don't hide it. Even Sideshow use this technique on some of their statues. Sadly, I don't think we'll see mass produced statues like this with the old school fully painted technique. Decals are a popular option as its cheaper to hire someone to apply decals than to hand paint over 1000 Predator statues, and it also ensures consistency. The prototype is probably painted to establish a base pattern to copy. They probably had trouble replicating it in decal form so they dumbed it down, or the factory that made it simply sucked lol.
I'm still 50/50 at this stage, whether I PO or not will probably depend on how CS handles my situation with the 1/4. If they brush it off and say too bad can't help you, it's good enough, I won't be pre-ordering on principal. If they come good and give me a new head that is properly painted, I will probably PO the 1/3, albeit locally, and just hope for the best lol. I'm not expecting prototype-levels on that either, but certainly better than what they did on the 1/4.