The manufacturers are way ahead of us here. Do you know how many model numbers the average printer manufacturer has - sometimes for the same product?
It's a byzantine mess that shifts every week or so. If you can solve this problem, you can also solve the problem of having consistent reviews for products.
The logical solution is to fall into the arms of Apple or their equivalent in a given industry.
In many areas, Apple doesn't exist (even with a different name). Worse, sometimes they exist, but only for a brief time as the company strip-mines the goodwill that a given product has to extract more profits and then fall back to "industry rest-state".
Customer preference to control manufacturers' behavior is a model that rarely works.
It's a byzantine mess that shifts every week or so. If you can solve this problem, you can also solve the problem of having consistent reviews for products.