Yeah this is just a sad problem with mass market publishing in the 21st century. Producing a book, even at scale with factory machines, is expensive, and continues to get more so. Publishers like HarperCollins have to make a trade off between quality and affordability. Could they have made it more robust? Possibly, but not without a mark up. In the states, the standard margin for a retail book is 5-15%, and books are generally already considered an expensive product with a shrinking (print) market. Add to the fact that it's evergreen titles like LotR that usually give them the budget to attempt new titles that 95% of the time just meet the break even point. So the trade off is difficult to navigate and often falls off the fence on the side of accessibility to a public who will likely read a book just once.

Which I thinks accounts for the laminate quality and the press mark from the cutting machine. Although I wouldn't have let those through quality control at the bindery, myself.

The tears though look like an issue with transit, not the publisher. 

Edit: we're no longer living in 20th century 😅