As regards to the quality, and it again depends on the particular company and the product, if it is good, it can be close to being as good as a top of the range SG or SS, which are really really good.
As for protection, again read the above.
But it is not a rule of thumb, you need a bit of luck as well. Having spent a lot of time discussing all these with my friends in India and having gone to Jallandhar a few times myself, I can simply say that based on the value offered by a few of these companies, you cannot go wrong overall. The ratio of being lucky to unlucky if you can hunt down a family run good independent entrepreneur should be around 90:10. The ratio of finding a good company to a bad one is 40:60.
I hope this gives a bit of idea