I own ARs...and none of them say Colt. And chances are, I'll never buy one that says Colt on it.
"OMG, OMG, OMG! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, GV?!?!?!"
Two reasons. First being the fact I only buy a midlength gas system unless I absolutely HAVE to get a carbine length (my pistol upper, for example). While the midlength isn't "industry standard" it's reliable and mature enough to buy good quality parts for or come in complete uppers from reputable manufacturers.
To me, it's always come down to recoil minimization. While the recoil from an AR is extremely tame to begin with, I took it to extremes and put the midlength gas system, an H2 buffer, a better stock, more comfortable grip and a nice brake on the front. I can practically put two rounds right on top of each other in less than a second with my rig.
Colt doesn't and likely won't ever produce a midlength. Which brings me to the second reason I won't buy Colt.
Extreme lack of innovation. They sell on the name and the fact they build (most) rifles to the strict TDP and don't you DARE change it! GW's 6721 being an obvious outlier, but anyway. They come in the Mom jeans and Hello Kitty shirt variety and NOTHING else. Yeah, they tried that Rogers Stock nonsense for a few years and somewhat recently got on the bandwagon of adding Magpul furniture, but let's face it. A Colt comes out of the box with what another manufacturer called "place holding items." Standard grip? Insert grip of choice here. Standard round handguards? Insert choice here. Standard stock? Etc, etc, etc. Zero innovation to improve their products, but by golly, you've got a COLT!
Yeah, it's the standard. But not my standard. Sometimes I would prefer to buy something assembled up front with the items I want rather than have to pay Colt's price and drop yet more money into it getting what I want. I'm not a brand name snob, so I'll never begrudge anyone for owning a Colt. But it isn't the end all, be all of the AR world. They have been outperformed by BCM, Daniel Defense, Palmetto State Premium, LMT, Larue, Knights, Noveske, Springfield, FNH, etc in combining quality with "what the buyer wants" in the past decade. Colt is slowly, much too slowly, trying to change that paradigm, but I feel they will likely end up as a footnote in history along with Remington and Winchester since their lack of innovation and creativity doesn't permit them to change to an evolving market. Colt is like the grumpy grandpa that screams at the kids to get off his lawn and refuses to upgrade his 56K internet because "it does what I need it to do."
