Good post Anand. Some time ago Rod Elliot [of Elliot Sound Products] made the point that many Toshiba transistors are in fact fakes. The commonly used output devices 2SA1302 and 2SC3281 being cited as the most commonly faked transistors of all. They are also out of production by Toshiba!
It's a worry because externally the fakes look good, so avoiding cheap Chinese products might not keep us safe. There's a fair chance that people other than the producers of "cheap Chinese" products have been fooled.
I'm off to cut apart a sample transistor from my own parts bin to see what is exposed .......