The mincers on hardtails usually drag the back brake loads causing lots of damage. No excuse for cutting corners. The man made stuff can be repaired, it's the natural shared trails people want to be a bit more thoughtful on.
With brand new pads mine were great but got worse and worse, this was on 3 bikes as well, it felt like they were glazing but sanding them down didn't help
The new Genius is a far better bike than the old one, had one and it was great, better up and down than the Ransom. The Ransom will be replaced next year.