I've had great luck with both. The Ripcord Code Red had less plastic parts than the QAD. Not that I ever had anything break on QAD. The advantage of the QAD was that it would stay up on letdown where as the code red would not. My understanding is that the new Rip Cords (not sure the model) now have the let down feature also.

Having said all that I switched to a Hamskea hunter hybrid pro for this year. It can be activated by either limb or the downward cable. So far it has been great.