1 thou is a pretty reasonable tolererance for a manufacturing standard I would imagine for a tie rod ball joint! But I also agree todays TRW tie rod ends have no grease nipples. What to do with that? Trust them? I dunno, lots of Japanease cars (including Toyota) have no grease nipples on the tie rod ends, they seem to rely on the joint sealing till end life (check every 10,000?). Hmmmn. The only TRW issue I ever had was with Torana steering rack, and it didn't fail, it just wore out.