I just wanted to put in a good word for AZ. I spent most of my working life with them. I enjoyed it enormously. It was great fun working with Italians, and I grew to love them and their country greatly.
As far as AZ was concerned, sure there were problems, but once you understood how the system worked, there were ways round the problems too.
The stations outside of Italy achieved amazing results on very slim resources indeed.
I really hope AZ makes it. The story might have been very different if it hadn't been for the aborted KL/AZ venture!