if I remember correctly, Colt gets a royalty for every rifle or M4 that FN makes, so they aren't hurting too bad.
Much of the article is rehashed and some now discredited stuff.
A lot of these stories originated with H&K when they were trying to sell the Army on their "wonder rifle" that wasn't so wonderful in actual combat.
The mentioned congressman was carrying H&K's water during that time.
Among other things, no one I've ever heard from mentioned anything about Colt barrels coming loose, and I'm just shocked that continuous, sustained full auto fire will cause problems with a thinner, lighter barrel then a thicker, heavier barrel.
One hilarious statement in the article was the complaint that the first thing they had to do upon returning from a patrol was to clean their rifles. DUH!!!
Some time months ago on another forum a post was started asking actual recent combat vets of the Sand Wars to give their experiences with the M4.
Almost to a man they they were completely satisfied with the M4 and reported no problems.
Their main issues were with worn out magazines that once turned in as defective, were simply reissued instead of being scrapped.
Many stated that after seeing that, when they got a bad mag they either "lost it in combat" or damaged it enough it couldn't be used.
Some reported being issued magazines that were Vietnam War era heavily used mags, but most of them still functioned 100%.
They said that the people who had problems with their M4's were the people who never came out from behind the wire, and didn't give their weapons proper maintenance.
I'm sure that in Caesar's legion some headquarters puke was found to have a rusty sword that wouldn't cut well when he needed it.
Every one of these actual combat vets were completely satisfied with the 5.56mm round, although some who served in Afghanistan did say a longer ranging cartridge would be nice in the mountains, but also said that during combat inside villages a more powerful round wouldn't work as well.
Most said that most of their combat was at shorter ranges, well within the 5.56 M4 range, and that at longer ranges, machine guns, rockets, and air support were far more effective than any rifle.
So, shocker of shockers, the M4 is not the ultimate end all, be all of combat rifles that can do it all.
Name one that is.