So do you have some specific knowledge about how NikonUSA is structured or are you just putting forth your version of "vague assumptions"? I have worked in various manufacturing business models from Coke bottling to light and heavy construction (Texas refinery) to food manufacturing as an accountant dealing with physical plant costs. Nikon has been at this over 100 years. Their employees are highly trained. They are not farming this stuff out to slave labor.

Paul, every department has a budget with projections for revenue and costs. They know what this stuff costs to do. They make or break it on the aggregate and not the separate discrete item like a DX lens. Reputation and customer service go hand in hand. If the cost running a re-furb program made no economic sense, there would not be such a program. And all this equipment would end up in a shredder for recycling. Besides they have the infrastructure to support refurb already in place - their repair and maintenance program.

I never said they were better than new. I have owned refurb'ed myself. By your narrative, they should rename it the "Nikon Re'Turd Program. Get real.

With all due respect, no rational company is going to send equipment back out the door that hasn't been put on the lift and given a good inspection and fixed where required. To do so would be risking their reputation and brand by carelessly putting back out gear that has not been vetted.
If they did so, the overall reputation of the Nikon Refurb'ed Program would be on par with "Abes of Maine". You know? A dumpster fire.
When I sent my D850 recently to replace the LCD screen which it cost me about $350 to $375 out of warranty, I did not select a cleaning or calibration but they included it anyway when i read the final work order plus cleaning the view finder. The regular cleaning charge is not far South of that anyway.
And I got it back less than 2 weeks later. I understand how jaded some people can get, but that is great customer service and points to the skill and efficiency of their techs.
And that's why I am a die-hard Nikon user on my 7th DSLR body since 2008. I still own 4 of them and gifted the other 3 to family.

Paul is correct as to the possible origin of most refurb'ed items. Except I would add to that display samples from dealers. Nikon does not permit selling samples as new. I bought the last unopened discontinued D600 from my local Best Buy a few years ago. The salesman then removed the floor sample and said it was going back to Nikon. Buying directly from Nikon would be my preferred source as it gets a through going-over by the company-trained techs before being reboxed in a grey box instead of the original gold box. You will take a hit on the duration of the factory warranty to something like 90 days for cameras but the cost savings off the original MSRP is the trade-off.

Here is a fresh try at a Milky Way shot at Schoodic Peninsula last spring. Just before the blue-hour and the stars would start to vanish. The original was taken with a D850 and an 11mm Irix lens. 3200 ISO and for about 20 to 25 seconds. There was noticeable noise on the shoreline rocks in the foreground. I just ran it through Topaz Denoise.
I think it made a good improvement, with the only caveat being the smudging of the stars and cloud bands close to the horizon.

(Download)

You do make some good points and I appreciate that.

This machine though was intended to be a high-end CAD machine and it is for the most part proprietory and is not really open-source with regards to the mobo and maybe limited CPU upgrades. Intel I9s are not an option.
It is running 2 six-core Xeon processors at 3.33 mghz (not over-clocked). The 2nd CPU is on an optional modular riser which slides in and is locked down. There are 6 DIMM slots on the MOBO and an additional 6 on the riser.
Specifications are DDR3 memory at 1066 MHz or 1333 MHz. The BIOS is seeing all 96.

Supported memory module capacities can range from 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, and 16GB with a maximum memory of 96 GB on the motherboard alone and 192 GB with the optional riser installed.
This machine came from the refurb'er with 12 sticks of 8GB for the 96 and they all are running. It came from the trading floor of an investment bank.

And like I said, I have a 2gig graphics card. It will support a card of up to 6gig. But the market at this time is disrupted by bit-coin mining demand. On NewEgg all they have for cards are from companies I have never heard of before - Saplos, Yeston and Inno. Probably low-level Chinese junk. No Invidia or Gigabyte or PNY.
Dell's highest spec card for this machine in their archived specs is an NVIDIA Tesla C2075 at 6GB.
It can be had for $300 on Amazon new (supposedly). Not bad even considering that is half of what I paid for this machine. Have to explore that further now that I have Topaz.

New I would not be surprised to see an original MSRP above $10K on this Dell. When I worked for a local construction and engineering firm here in Maine back in 2010, they were running these Precision machines in the engineering shack on the project site for their CAD.

But all things considered, I am getting significant bang-for-my-buck for the meager resources spent on this hardware. If the CPU crashes, I can source a matched pair of identical processors on Ebay for around $70. These are server-grade processors. Apple used them in the Mac Pro.

But when I have to retire it, I will probably have an I9-based custom build made to replace it.
Thanks for your insight.

A time machine as well?

Thanks for that heads-up.

A gpu upgrade is on my X-mas wish list but with Bit-coin miners and flippers hoarding supplies, not spending a small fortune on a new one is a remote possibility at this time. The market is flooded with used ones coming from decommissioned Farms but they have had the snot kicked out of them from 24/7 mining operations.
Just waiting for supply and demand to come into some sense of normalcy.

I was hoping the narrative would show that. Next time I will use those title blocks.

Just like the Kodak 4800, I have good stuff from my early years from a 3mpxl D995. Until now, it is just not scalable and relegated to a B-list. Maybe with Topaz, that will change.

Well my machine is an off-lease Dell Precision T-7500 I bought from an ebay refurb'er for about $600 with shipping. Dual 3.2mghz Xeon processors running 8 cores. It was from a investment brokerage house and had cards and cables for four monitors. 96 gig of ram on-board. I swapped the cards out with a 2 gig Gigabyte dual fan gpu that came from a guy I knew who got out of the bit-coin mining and he parted out his machine. $100.
Installed 4 internal Samsung SSDs. Four full-size external drive slots on the front. Scads of USB connectivity everywhere. I run 3 drive enclosures raided. Plus a hand-ful of external ssd drives. Lots of backup.
As I migrate from one machine to another, I bring along as much of the previous gear that still works.
Maybe hitting a wall in the next couple years as my system will not play with Win 11. So just running out the clock. I essentially find a cheap upgrade to match the progression from my D70s in 2008 to my D850 two years ago. Also I am running more software in conjunction with Photoshop. And now it looks I am adding Topaz AI to the mix. I did a Sharpen AI on something last night. Took 35 minutes to complete the save.
So better to have the horsepower and not need it than to need the horsepower and not have it.

Good idea about the DNG. Thanks, Paul.

Thank you Jay.