Thanks to all that have posted. I have learned a great deal. My initial thoughts in testing the spokes China against Swiss as it be, (and for the record the two China spokes I tested were from the spare spoke carrier and were virgins) I did just the simplest of simple strain tests on the ultimate tensile strength of the material they were made from. Accounting for slightly different wire sizes between the two samples they both pulled at right around 150,000 pounds/sq inch. That is a pretty respectable number and not at all what I expected between two vastly different products. If I were to set up a test as some mentioned to compare several of the major brands, the test would look completely different. sure we could do just a tension test but a real world life test would be much more interesting to see. Something where the spoke was fixed just as it is in a bike and under preload as tensioned in a bike. then a load similar to real life could be cycled into it for millions of cycles and watch for failure. maybe even a better test would be to lace a wheel to specs and then build a test rig that holds the wheel on something like a treadmill with a load pushing it down and see what happens after a simulated run. Testing like this would take months 24-7 to do but would be interesting to see. I don’t know if any of the bike manufactures do these things of not.
Even though I didn’t buy my Windsor on line (second hand) I can see the logic in going thru a LBS for set up and things like checking and redoing the spokes at least before setting out. In all honesty mine being second hand the first owner could have messed up the factory spokes before I got it but I don’t think that to be the case. I have also found that not all LBS are able to do this and at the rates charged most people are not willing to pay that much for a casual rider. One shop told me we can sell you a new wheel assembly for less. I didn’t stick around there too long.
Where I live the selection of true touring bikes is quite limited. I haven't found any resentment to working on my Windsor when I bring it in with such issues but I would suggest finding out ahead of time with them if you don’t want to tackle your own spoke setting, or for that matter all the bike adjustments required after shipping. I read enough negative reviews dealing with spokes on this bike to have me assuming it most likely was quality of materials and as it well could be is quality of assembly more so. I also have read of people doing the TA on my exact same bike pretty much out of the box and having no issues. What I'm not sure of did they have the bike gone over with a fine tooth comb first.
We have never made saltwater taffy on the tension machine that I know of but it has been suggested we press grapes many times with it.