The great ming military blog is not Scott Rodell's work.
Peter Dekker has done some research into the history of militia jian too. Whether or not it was efficient to make them, nevertheless they were made. This was the ming period 1640s and earlier not the 20th century -
http://www.mandarinmansion.com/chinese-ming-dynasty-militia-swordThe hilt of the wobbly sword - some Chinese weapons had cruciform hilts. Cruciform sabre hilts were fairly common in the Yuan dynasty when the mongols were influenced by persian and middle eastern sabre forms. Later this was replaced by the more disc like guards on sabres and sometimes on jian
A ming jian with disc guard:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1676844452343459&set=gm.1370156853049463&type=3&ifg=1Painting of ming court officials with cruciform hilts on jian
Steve James - I gave you a record of jian usage from William Mesny, British adventurer and Qing Army General who related in southern China short fancy jian were used for dueling.
High quality weapons would be unavailable to most due to cost not restriction on arms. There were many good quality old sabres around China all the time. The military would issue them to troops who would then be sent on campaign, often against bandits and rebels. After months of fighting when the uprisings were put down many soldiers did not recieve their due payment (due to corruption) or were disbanded so many would sell their equipment. This was technically illegal so there are examples of old sabres with markings filed off the base of the baldes. Most Chinese military weapons have few markings but some would have the army or battalion numbers engraved into the base of the blade. There are quite a lot of examples around of polearm heads (glaives/pudao/guandao type) being refitted as sabres too. Which might indicate military weapons being re-purposed for more practical use by civilians. And I'm sure many ended up being reused as scrap.
As for large scale manufacture. I don't think there were any large scale factory type arms manufacturers except maybe the Imperial workshops. Almost all antique Chinese arms will show slight variations in form and fittings indicating that they were individually made. There were specifications for military arms, so the sizes, lengths etc. are often very similar between weapons, but many small variations. Most antique jian have very similar dimensions.
I'm not trying to say the jian was a military mainstay. The quote I posted from the ming military blog also says that from the Ming period jian usage declined. It was then a status symbol but if you've seen antique jian you will know that even though they may not have been in mass usage for military means they were still made to be practical. A lot of the fancy short jian (I own one myself) have good quality blades despite being mainly for sale as ornamental pieces.
Windwalker - what makes Maarten and his teacher's sword work reflect historical accounts? can you offer any of these historical accounts for us to review?