My experience with buying quarters was 'so-so' enough that I stopped. Even when the meat was good enough, I found that I felt like I was being ripped off. There is just so much opportunity between the farmer and butcher to cheat you, and you don't have any insight. Maybe it's just me.

I can really only imagining this working out consistently if you really developed those relationships, and for a purchase I'd make a few times a year at most, it didn't seem worth it.