I once spent days trying to figure out why a 10 hour timer on a battery charger chip was going off hours too early, leading to the device draining its battery instead of charging it. Turned out the manufacturing partner had substituted another part, functionally equivalent except for the one feature we were relying on...
I can't remember what it was that made me actually look at the chip to check the part number.
An example, 'why won't this chip work!?', 5 hours later and a full driver written, 'oh, I just didn't turn on this one pin. now it works great!'.
Also, in relation to your last sentence, assuming that the hardware you have (resistor and capacitor values) are the same as what is in the schematic.
All of this talk about how miserable embedded development is makes it sound like these guys need more automated tools. Is there not a fuzz testing machine for embedded electronics prototypes?