The lens hood locks tight on my 105/1.4, 58/1.4, ... in fact the whole series. On my 60 AF-S and 105 AF-S Micros, the hood is getting loose over time and needs periodic replacement. However, those Micros were made many years ago.
As far as I can tell, Nikon tripod mounts are gradually improving. The 200/2 II mount is much better than the awful "ringing" mount of the Mk I. The RT-1 for 70-200/4 and 300 PF is quite good. I have also read the E FL supertele primes have reinforced tripod mounts compared to the G VR versions. The poor tripod mount of the 300/2.8 VR II is the primary reason I did not buy it and am waiting for the FL version with presumably improved mount to be introduced.
The reason many tripod mounts of Nikon teles in the first decade of the 21th century were so flexible remains a mystery. I think Nikon has been making better tripod mounts now because of the high resolution cameras. And probably popular complaints as well. Sigma tripod collars are like rubber. So it's not just Nikon who had the "bright" idea of a slightly flexible collar. I did notice that the flexible collar seems to have some attenuation characteristic for intermediate speeds (maybe 1/125s) compared to a more rigid collar. But at slower speeds the flexible collars are terrible. I think the assumption behind the slightly flexible design must have been that nobody shoots long lenses at 1/30s. Personally I really dislike the compositional imprecision that the flexible collars give as a side effect when locking the tripod head and letting go of the lens to shoot with a remote.
