Well if Amtrak had more funds for capital improvements and could build some new Superliners. customers might not encounter these problems. As it stands, Amtrak has to make due with the resources Congress approves for them. Unfortunately with no new Superliners on the horizon, it is only going to get worse as the existing cars getting older and more threadbare. When Amtrak was started, private railroads like the Santa Fe that still operated great passenger trains knew that most of their cars were over 20 years old and they did not want to make the capital expenditures to build new cars which they knew would be necessary in the next 5-10 years so they joined Amtrak. Now Amtrak is encountering the same problems the railroads had with aging passenger cars due to lack of adequate funding. Amtrak needs a dedicated source of funding that would allow them to operate passenger trains nationwide that will provide decent service that will cause customers to want to travel again.
The Air Force has been flying B-52 bombers that were last built in the '60s - more than 50 years ago. Why? They maintain them. Amtrak's maintenance is not acceptable. I think part of it is that they don't have (or don't use) a good reporting system for issues. Conductors should have a web-connected computer on every train for all maintenance issues. SCAs should be able to use that computer to report problems in their car. Then when the car arrives at its end point, maintenance has a list of issues. I see obvious car problems that have likely existed for months or years and just probably never got fixed (or even reported).
Some issues can be addressed simply by having a maintenance person on board periodically to fix the small stuff while en-route (like that latch and spill in the article). Others require repair shop fixes and, yes, Amtrak needs sufficient spare cars to pull the problem ones out of service when they can't be fixed before going out again. But they need to do a better job of documenting the issues and quickly fixing small problems before they become big-voucher issues.
Maintenance is always the problem child. Whether it is a roof leak at your local school or non-working items at the town hall, governments don't adequately fund maintenance and pay for it over the long run by big capital spending to replace small maintenance costs.