One would think that a profitable company would invest in a custom, quality on hold marketing message rather than irritating and pushy recordings for their customers that are left waiting on hold. 

Not so. At least in my experience as of last week.  I called a company’s customer service line to deal with some billing issues and was (of course) put on hold, only to be subjected to obnoxious sales pitches and poor quality music.  What is up with that?  The company was a larg, national establishment and yet apparently have not realized the impact of their crappy unbearable on hold recordings.