Toyota’s QA is not very good - they seem to be having all kinds of problems.

They may have been cutting testing to save money.

Maybe. But they're still pretty much the most reliable brand of car on the road.
In this case they've found a potential defect, but if can't be that bad if not a single car has been affected yet.

From personal experience I'd say they're awesome.
Other than comsumables (tyres, brake disks/pads), the only thing that's gone wrong with mine is the battery died.... And that was after 7 years and 110k miles. Nothing mechanical has gone wrong at all. I'm still on the original clutch, exhaust etc.

Yes but maybe this recall is to avoid potential problems and a way to rebuild confidence that they are on top of design faults. A US class action suit now could be very expensive so it might be cheaper to do the recall. Good for Toyota to do this.

I doubt a pensioner would have the same concerns as you.