Addendum...(edited)

...it gets worse. I talked to my illustrator (Pui) after we left the printers and she gave me more details about her discussion with the owner. His "solution" to the disaster would be to reprint the defective pages (at least 30 per book) and "un-bind" the books and replace the defective pages and then re-bind the books. That process horrified me, no way that's going to happen. Unless he/they reprint all of my books in their entirety; I will cancel my order. This may be headed for a total meltdown. Further, Pui said the owner said (for the first time) that for the price I'm paying he can only assure 93% of the books will be error free. This absolutely floored me. Unacceptable. Further yet, the problem with "his" solution is that after rebinding they will have to trim the book again thereby reducing the size of the book, plus; will they look like new books?, or books that have been grossly mishandled. This is not an option, period! The cover is already somewhat screwed up but you wouldn't know that unless you had seen the original version. I had thought to offer an additional 5 baht per copy for a total reprint, which is an additional $.14 USD per copy. That's about a 10% increase in my cost. I've decided I will not offer an additional 5 baht per copy. At this point I don't see how I can work with this printer but Monday will be the showdown. I'm at a distinct disadvantage because I'm not fluent in Thai so I have to rely on either Pui or my wife for translation (my wife wasn't available yesterday). Monday my wife will go to the printer and (hopefully) straighten this out. My wife agrees with me 100% on everything, which makes her a very strong advocate for getting the right thing. Fortunately I had only put 2,500 baht ($72 USD) down, not the usual 50%...so, I can walk away, which I may well have to do. I do hope the owner is honestly interested in making this right.

I will follow this up with an additional post on the lessons learned and what I'll do differently next time. I definitely made some assumptions (never good in business) I had no business making, so I did make many mistakes because of my inexperience.
Keep tuned for further developments...