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I took out my TISAS GI for the first time.  Great gun.  I was using Springfield Armory Inc blued 7 rd mags that were new in the packaging before this range trip.  Two of the mags worked fine.  The third worked for the first 6 rounds but caused a malfunction on the last round.  

I took it apart and even without the spring the follower was binding about 80% of the way up.  I threw the mag in the trash.

Last week I found my Dawson Precision 9mm mags that I had loaded up for a comp last July. I unloaded them and one of the followers was stuck, maybe 3 rounds from the top. A quick tap and it was good.

Shot a match on Saturday and everything worked fine.

It happens, usually from a dent or bend in the body. Sometimes simply getting sand in there could bind it up too.

This mag was brand new.  I guess just a factory defect.

Yup.  On official Glock mags.  Many of them.

Yes, it's the most God awful feeling to experience.

Factory Colt 45ACP magazine for one of my 1911 Government models I had since 1989 and used to carry.

Gun and mag ran fine for years of thousands of rounds and multiple magazines.

One day one of them gave up the ghost at the range.

That was my carry gun and may have been one of the magazines in it for carry as I rotate carry gun magazines.

I keep thinking what if...

Literally owned 100s of 9, 40, 357s, 45acp glock mags....have never saw it with glock branded mags.  Not saying it can't happen, but "many of them", I don't know about that.....

I usually run etm mags not any issue that springs to mind.  I did have a 9mm etm mag that the follower would override the nub on a SA slide stop.  Turned out the nub was undersized.

Sticking followers?  I've fixed dozens of them.  Sometimes the cause is bad heat treat of the mag tube that causes it to warp slightly, sometimes it's a burr on the tube at the top that catches the follower, sometimes it's a poorly manufactured follower that is lopsided or just plain wrong in one dimension or another.  These are all fixable with some effort but generally not worth the effort unless the replacement cost for a new mag is prohibitive or you enjoy a challenge.

Me, I'm a glutton for punishment and take a poorly functioning magazine as a personal insult.  Here's a magazine that wasn't functioning correctly and drove me crazy trying to diagnose it.  It was exhibiting failures-to-lock back on an empty mag.  Eventually, I discovered it had a tiny burr that was catching the follower at just the right time to cause the problem.  The burr was so small I couldn't feel it with my finger.  The way I found it was by gently, slowly pushing the follower up the tube until it hung up.

This picture shows where the follower got hung up.  "C" is pointing to the area where the burr was located.



This picture of the follower shows the slide stop engagement tab "A" while "B" is the spot where the finish was rubbed off due to repeated contact with the burr.



The last picture is another view of where the burr was located at the tip of the arrow inside the tube.

Yes, but never on Wilson mags.

Mags with metal followers that look like "bent sheet metal" will hang up (usually nose down).  Mags with more robust plastic followers usually do not.

Think MagPul PMAG follower vs Green USGI follower.  Same issue / concept.

I do not like GI followers like the one in the OP's original post for the reason you state.  I absolutely love followers like the pic of the one I posted above because they don't go nose down.  The reason is they have a stabilizing leg both fore and aft so the follower can't tip.  As you allude to, M16s started off using followers with no front leg and short rear leg, then they moved on to followers with a long rear leg and a short front leg, finally they started using followers with long rear and front legs.  The final example is extraordinarily stable in the mag.

To clarify, it wasn't really an issue of tilt as it was a tolerance stacking issue in my case.  That follower wouldn't fall down the mag on its own with the spring removed.  It took a bit of force to get it to go down.