Believe some of the issues were with the black tuners on the purple sparkle Ray34/5 and stiff truss rods on some? Neither is a really good look on a company like MusicMan.
From my own experience, and I've had six Ray35 basses and a Ray34CA, I've found them to really good. The last one, a natural Ray35 with the roasted neck was impressively put together and played fantastically well.
A purple SBMM Bongo 5 would interest me as long as the tuners didn't eat themselves when turned and the truss rod worked. Think I'd get on okay with the 2EQ as I was forever fiddling with the high and low mids on the full fat ones. Used to drive me mad!