So I should trust possibly incentivized/paid/cherry-picked reviews over actual customer reviews? I dunno, that's the opposite advice of what's usually given these days.
But you should trust reviews from people who may or may not know ANYTHING whatsoever about PSUs? That seems highly dubious.
What fraction of people who use a product and have a positive experience with it leave a newegg review? What fraction who have a negative experience leave a negative review? What is the knowledge level of these consumers? Do they actually know anything about power supplies? Do they know how to assess the quality of a unit beyond "my pc turned on" or "my pc didn't turn on"?
I just know that Corsair made rock-solid PSUs in the 2000s and early 2010s, but lately it seems the quality has started to be hit or miss. I almost never used to read customer reviews where people reported their PSUs being DOA or dying quickly. Corsair PSUs were simply that good. They were high quality.
And how did you come to that conclusion? A highly rigorous sampling of newegg reviews? Your own vague recollections from 5+ years ago versus the reviews you're reading now? I don't know how you could possibly assess objectively whether or not quality has increased or decreased without rigorously checking DOA rates (hint: self-reporting is not rigorous, and I doubt Corsair would share their internal data on that with you as it is pretty clearly a trade secret) or physically opening up units and rigorously testing them.
It also shouldn't require stepping up to the top-line series to get reliable quality. Corsair never used to be like that. Their mid-range were extremely solid and even their entry level models for the first few years were solid as well.
So what brands are now the rock-solid, reliable, high-quality (gold/platinum), modular, quiet fan PSUs today?
You're not describing entry-level powers supplies. You don't get "rock-solid" + 80+ Gold and Plat (and btw, high-quality and 80+ rating do not always mean the same thing), modular, and quiet/hybrid fan mode on entry-level units. All of those things cost serious money to the manufacturers and they just cannot presently sell those at entry level prices.
You ARE describing the RM units I linked to. They're 80+ Gold, they're extremely well-built (check out those scope-shots!), they're fully modular, AND they have hybrid fan modes where neither unit spin up their fans until ~400W load.
My advice is to read reviews written by people who know what they're talking about, and who demonstrate that by actually testing units according to things like their compliance with the ATX spec. Their performance under real loads at real temperatures. Find which PSUs do well. Find which OEMs, and even better, which particular OEM platforms make up those well-reviewed units, and shop those platforms.
Here are some suggestions:
SeaSonic is a perennial high-quality OEM and many brands use their platforms. Corsair uses SeaSonic designs on their TX and previous HX series, XFX uses SeaSonix units for their Pro-series. Seasonic also retails their own units under their own brand.
Super Flower OEMs a ton of units for EVGA's Supernova series. Virtually every unit in the Supernova line-up has received glowing reviews.
Flextronics has made a handful of glowingly reviewed high-end units like the Corsair AX series.
Delta is a big-name server PSU maker, and they are the OEM for most (if not all?) of Antec's excellently reviewed HCP series.