Quote:

who would salvage such a beautiful and lovely sounding pedal for the chips?

A scumsucking sleezepig ebay ripoff merchant by the sounds of it. Name and shame!
OP, did you pay with paypal?
I’d file a dispute: “item not as described” — that thing has been harvested for more than pots. Return it and get your $$ back. (even better if you used a cc on paypal, do a chargeback and let paypal go after the seller).

My money’s on a bad switch (or if you’re lucky a loose wire on the switch, but most likely the switch). You should be able to get a new one for $10.

If you want to say no more, that’s fine by me but if you want we can get into this.
QC is an easy one that’s pretty clear of the emotional aspect. Take a Danelectro TO and a Timmy (Danelectro ripped off Paul Cochrane’s circuit, oops unethical business practices?) or a Danelectro fuzz and a Frantone peach fuzz (oops, same deal as before) and compare the quality. Same?

Also sounds like you’re making an assumption I’m American and/or that I’m saying America is somehow above and beyond reproach — neither is true.

Sounds like you might really want a Little Muff Pi — that’s a Muff Fuzz in a stomp box enclosure.

Here’s a gutshot that might help

Most compressors are noisy to some extent by virtue of what they do, but some are noisier than others. Nothing beats an old Dynacomp if you ask me. (Not the M102, an old one from the 70s. Scripts are best, but expensive. I found a transition block logo with script guts and it sounds great). Haven’t they just reissued those as custom shop hand wired versions? I saw a Phase 90 and it looked pretty good..

Everything before everything else.
Filters (wah and dynacomp) before dirt
Compressor after filters and before dirt (unless you want white noise).
Delay and modulation at the end or in FX loop if you have one.
I usually go low gain -> high gain with dirt, but regular (not muff) fuzz before dirt.
The boost? Depends what you want to use it for. Boost->OD will give you more gain (not necessarily volume); OD->boost will give you more volume (not necessarily gain).

So, FWIW: Wah->Qtron->comp->TS9->BMP->delay with boost depending on use

But I also agree with justubert: dump (or mod) the crybaby and the Boss compressor.

Grab some samples and load them into a sampler?
http://www.freesound.org/tagsViewSingle.php?id=2561

Or hang on a bit, sell your kidneys, and buy one of the reissues due out this year.
http://www.moogmusic.com/taurus/?section=product&product_id=21299