Sultan,
Your post assumes the defective item is making metal.. It is possible, and reasonable that a crack in a gear will make an alteration to vibration signals, before it makes significant amounts of metal.. Thus $ 1/2 million HUMS systems.
Your dismissal of the system is in itself symptomatic of the kind of attitudes that prevent system improvement. If half a million bucks worth of HUMS isn't quite good enough, then why not spend another 1/4 of a mil making it better?? At least then when we start making the oily bits out of non-magnetic materials, we will have system maturity on the fault detection.
I'm not Rubbishing your statement, just highlighting limitations. I guess though, nothing that involves a human interpretation or judgement will ever be fool proof.
PS to whoever mentioned "spacecraft made of parts supplied by the lowest bidder"
One rather well known American manufacturer openly tells its supplier base that it will be insisting on a 2% year on year price reduction for the next 5 years.. How do you think that is going to be achieved?? A bit of lean manufacturing? Six sigma? Improved investment in new technologies? That must be it.. For sure.. Phew! No need to worry!