In this case, what prompted me to take a look at voltage regulators were reports that the quality on parts store replacement regulators had really gone downhill. So I started by looking at a representative example of what you'd find at a parts store to see just how bad they are. I also wanted to check if the design was based on Chrysler's original circuit or some sort of later technology, as for a while there have been monolithic alternator-voltage-regulator-on-a-chip devices and other developments. In this case, it looks like they've copied Chrysler's circuit with newer components, and copied it badly. They either did not notice that one of the resistors was a thermistor, or didn't care.