I'll try to break it down for you, since I was around when this was so hottly "debated" on these boards, but I didn't participate much.
Keep in mind that thousands of bikes have been sold. Some broke. All brands have breakage. No one is immune. I guess it's how some of those breakages were handled under the Lifetime Warranty that caused the dissention. That Warranty no longer exists, BTW.
Two bikes particularly surround the controversy: The Truth and the Id. Also, there was a specific model year Truth that caused the most grief. In 2003(?) there was a fundamental redesign of the frame and the rockers of the Truth. Some older bikes broke at the seat tube presumably because of leverage issues which is what prompted the redesign. However, when it came to a warranty replacement on the new bikes, a new front triangle and new rockers, as well as new shock (length changed) was required. Seat stays and chainstays were ok. Ellsworth was charging for the new rockers and shock and warrantying the frame (is that correct? Some others can verify). Understandably, people were upset after having already paid $2000 for the original frame. This was maybe a bad decision. I think what made things worse was that some people were handled differently. So the non-uniformity of the events created dissention as well. Right or wrong, good or bad, I think there were some mitigating factors that we weren't privy to, such as riders intentionally riding bikes for things they really weren't designed to withstand simply because they had a warranty and could be replaced if broke. At least that's what TE claimed in his one and only post.
Furthermore, a lot of Id chainstays were cracking over time. This phenomenon is not inherent to only Ellsworth. I think it's a problem of the four-bar Horst design. Those issues seemed to be resolved ok, but there may have been some supply issues, I'm not sure. One member recently cracked a chainstay and got a '06 rear with the asymetrical stays to mount on his Id (Lidarman). He also broke a Truth.
I've heard of people cracking Jokers, but not in a long time. Again, this bike gets a lot of abuse as a freerider/DH bike.
So, in the course of trying to build light weight bikes, I think some compromises were made in strength and they came to roost. And it all seemed to happen at the same time. So that aggravated the issue so that it looked more monumental than it was, in my opinion. Plus, people love drama.
As far as CS goes, there were mistakes made. But again, that seems to be taken care of, too. A decision was made a while back to only deal directly with Ellsworth dealers and some saw that as "standoffish" so that people couldn't call them directly. But I think many still do and have expressed satisfaction with those experiences. There's a thread regarding "shot peening" here, read that. It looks to me like Ellsworth took care of that customer pretty well. Plus, manufacturing is now in house, where QA can be more closely monitored. This seems like a positive step to me. Shot peening has gone away in the meantime.
In essence, things seem to have gotten back on track. Many disgruntled Ellsworth owners now own Turners. Many blame TE for the design change at Turner, right or wrong. There will always be rivalries and this one goes way back. For every one unhappy customer, there are ten that are happy. And they never report their good experiences.
Hopefully that helps, because I'm sure many are going to chime in so we can talk about it over and over again! Yippeee!
