Hi all --
I've been buying from MRL for a few years now, and can't say I've had many problems with them myself. To be technical they are a distributor (actually a division of Atlanta Cutlery), not a manufacturer, though the bulk of the reenactment stuff comes from
Windlass Steelcrafts. I was unaware of any contraversy concerning the flexibility of Windlass' swords, but would be interested in reading more on the subject, if there are links available. They seem to have pretty good modern military street cred, anyway.
For interests sake regarding clothing size, I got
this getup for Halloween in Sm/Med and it fit me (5'10", 140 lbs) fine, so it's how you hit it I guess.
I did have one problem with a
falcata I got for my birthday last year: it was severely oxidized when I got it out of the box. I sent it back, and they sent me ANOTHER severely oxidized one. Finally the third time it was right. The good news though is that they were really nice about it the whole time, I paid nothing for any return shipping or for them to expedite the product back to me, and in the end all was fine, and I'm still a return customer!
--Radleigh