* Jewel's produce is fine, but as you note it's hard to find much of anything outside of the typical fruits and veggies. It's also highly dependent on the individual store.
* Mariano's is god-awful produce wise, so can't imagine that's what you're talking about. Which Mexican produce store?
* Coincidentally, I did this check very recently and can guarantee you that WF stocks 4-5 different brands of chicken stock.
But why does that matter? Ultimately, my research revealed the best price/quality sweet spot for stock was Kirkland (shocker!). Which only proves the point: single item (the TJ's approach) might be all the market really demands. Now admittedly, if the 365 brand isn't quality, that's a problem.
Things you are right about:
* WF way over-invested in prepared foods, probably because the markup is so damn high. Problem is, as another poster noted, the quality used to be consistently pretty high, but is now closer to slop.
* Your list of what WF excels at...with one huge omission: bulk raw ingredients.
But again, same question. Going by the rule that the outside of the store (fresh foods) is where you want to eat most of your food from anyway — if WF is consistently better at the majority of what we should be buying, what's the issue?