Coupling:
I don't know her, never met her but I am in the same business as she is. If she simply wanted to strip it, she would have never put the money in without first running it through a chapter 11. In that scenario, the prior owners would have been much more marginalized, the past debt wiped out and the assets acquired at a fraction of the cost (think GM). That is what I would have done and was clearly the plan of all other interested parties.
My bet is that she thought she could make a killing without financially re-structuring it through BK but the capital structure she inherited, combined with what would objectively appear to be a lack of consistent competent management, has at best made it a bad deal. The structure of her deal made it clear from the beginning that she had to be in it for the long haul. The basis of her transaction made it impossible to simply "asset strip the company and make a killing."
I don't know if she is now trying to sell it or not but if she was out to make a quick buck, she would not still own it 5.5 years and 100 mil after her July 2005 acquisition.
You are correct in the fact that it is stuck in a rut and has not gotten any better since the Patriarch ownership, but all the rest of us who had interest, certainly would have been much tougher with respect to the terms of the original purchase. Absent a miracle of orders and good management, history will most likely show her assumptions were wrong, but she committed when the rest of the interested parties said no thanks on those terms.
Still love the product, and would love to see it thrive as with volume and great management, it could clearly be manufactured and supported at much lower costs.