Here's some thoughts on my experiences with the brand.

I'm in Germany, so while they are pricey, they are cheaper here then over in the US. I started out only doing Ravensburger after a bad experience with another German Brand (Schmidt). Now I'm going with motifs and have a lot of other brands in my collection. Ravensburger still is one of my favorite, they have lots of nice motifs, a good output, and work with a lot of original artists.

With Ravensburger, it's hit and miss. I had puzzles with more than one bent pieces, on the hinge of breaking, some de-laminated studs where the print separated from the cardboard, but never missing pieces. Only once I had extra pieces.

There is always puzzle dust, sometimes a lot. Though it is inconvenient, I don't count it against them too much because it is easily removed and doesn't affect the quality of the puzzle itself.

The Puzzle I'm doing now came absolutely perfect. Not a single damaged piece, not too much dust and all the Ravensburger goodies: Thick cardboard, perfect fit, nice print. The matte finish to reduce glare is the best I know.

Ravensburger draws the stencil by hand to cut their pieces, so there is a lot of variation in piece shapes. If you take a close look, you can virtually every time discern if a piece fits. There is an exemption to this rule, though, bigger puzzles (3000 pieces and above) use the cutting stencil more than once. They turn the stencil for the different halves, something like this. [p|d]

This leads to a slightly harder fitting center line, but can be used to know the shapes of the pieces of one half (quarter) if you've done the other already. Helped me out with a big monochrome section once.

Ravensburger doesn't make puzzles with smaller pieces like Castorland, which would allow people with limited space to to higher piece count puzzles. They also don't do irregular shapes except for in their extra hard Crypt series.

In conclusion, If you're lucky with a Ravensburger Puzzle, there is everything right. If you're not, there still isn't too much wrong. For me, they are worth the price.