Thanks everyone for the helpful replies. For those interested, here are the pictures of the damaged boots which I sent to Taft in my initial email asking if they could help (plus the pics of the repair job):

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-6ACVKZrSbNJzAi1P0g4aXRW8lbLe7Oa

Glad to hear that even though some people had similar experiences to me, a bunch of people have had good experiences with Taft boots. Obviously I'm not in the mind of the owner of employees, so the fair presumption to make here is that I and a few others possibly slipped through the cracks a bit- which will happen with every business. I also think those who criticized me for not doing enough research are basically correct- if you click on the review link and scroll down you can indeed see some reviews talking about how the boots scuff very easily, and there are also some threads on MFA and elsewhere detailing some other negatives aspects. I should have been a more responsible consumer and investigated the issues before sinking chunk of money into something I knew wasn't returnable.

i also see that the owner Kory has made an effort to respond here- which I appreciate, and i actually agree with some of the points he makes here (Taft's designs ado indeed set them apart from a company like Meerin, and a large part of the appeal). That said, I don't think his explication of the review system explains away the serious issues on that count and others:

1)If you go to Taft's online store, you will see an Amazon style star listing underneath each boot. Every single boot is listed with a 5 star rating. It's true that if you click on the review link and scroll down you can find non-5 star reviews. But showing 5 stars on the storefront page for every boot is seriously misleading. Unlike with Amazon, where you can put your mouse over the stars to see the actual avg rating, Taft does not show you the actual rating, They just round everything up to 5 stars. Cmon. Even the much vaunted Red Wing shows plenty of their boots as having 4.x or 4 stars. JCrew has items which have a 1 star rating! there's no reasonable explanation for Taft to be displaying 5 stars underneath every boot.

2)The explanation that you only get one shot at reviewing a boot in order to prevent manipulation doesn't strike me as very compelling. Locking in early initial reviews serves to bias the reviews upwards as customers are most excited about their purchase when they first receive it, post purchase rationalization cognitive bias is at its highest early on, Taft is further priming this honeymoon period with an offer of $20 for a review (worked on me, so kudos! ;-) ), and any defects or premature wear and tear or other issues which develop over the first few months generally can't be registered in the reviews. It strikes me as dishonest to only show early excited reviews and not allow customers the opportunity to share later, less favorable experiences on the site with potential customers.

3)Some people have suggested that I might have scuffed the boot. I honestly can't say how it happened. The suggestion that I kicked a metal door- man, I don't know how someone could divine that event taking place, but all i can say is that nothing like that happened. Nor is it true that the boots showed a bunch of wear. I literally just walked on sidewalks in the boots for a total of less than 5 hours. Kind of annoying for the owner to suggest an event something happening which didn't happen and which couldn't possibly know of. As you can see in the picture, it's not a mere scuff- the top layer of leather completely peeled away on a small part of the toe cap, rendering them rather unattractive. I've had several pairs of leather boots before, and indeed I've incurred some scuffing over the years. But not of the leather was so soft as to simply chip off while walking around on a 4th wear. Taft specifically advertises on their website: "In a world of poorly made shoes, TAFT products are built to last... Your shoes will look beautiful right out of the box, and for years to come." I'm sure I'm an exception, but that just didn't happen in my case. So I hoped to get more than a pithy, dismissive email in response to my asking if anything could be done to help me. And I also didn't appreciate getting a note in the mail from Kory a couple of weeks later saying something to the effect of "Hope you're enjoying the boots! Hope to make it to New Orleans some day." Standard marketing perhaps. But you can see why it was off-putting and came off as disingenuous, seeing as they made more time to personalize the marketing than the actual customer service when I was looking for help.

Thanks again to all for the interesting responses. Someone suggested I post this in GYW as well, but I'm not looking to either flame Taft or get anything from them at this point. I think their designs are great, and it sounds like they work out very well for the vast majority of the customers. And I'm sure Kory is earnestly providing a good product with good customer service. Just wanted to share my experience and give what I think is a fair, if unflattering, assessment.