[Arran]

I've heard of Midwest radios being referred to as the poor man's Scott, there was probably a certain amount of tube stuffing but many manufacturer's were guilty of that. The most common one I encounter is the use of a 6H6 and a 6F5/6J5 where a 6Q7/6R7 would have done the job.
There were plenty of ways to cut costs in radios without affecting the performance, one that Midwest used, along with using cheaper cabinets, was to use a thinner gauge of steel in the chassis. They could also be using cheaper brands of resistors, using resistors of a lower wattage, and cheaper capacitors, and tube sockets. Other then the tubes sockets none of this really matters if the set is going to be electrically restored anyhow. Hopefully they did not pull a brand Z and use power transformers that were just so for handling the wattage.
Regards
Arran