"high-quality" vs. "quality"

This appeared in the NYT the other day: "...creating a quality product is challenging."

I've always been under the impression that one should say "high-quality" or "low-quality" or have some modifier(?) before "quality". It seems weird to just say "quality" on its own. Is it?

I don't know the grammatical terms for what I'm trying to express (and if someone could fill me in with some explanation I would greatly appreciate it!).

One of the grammatical terms appropriate here is qualify.

Qualify verb 4 [with object] Grammar (Of a word or phrase) attribute a quality to (another word, especially a preceding noun). Secondly, the misconduct is qualified by the word ‘serious’. - ODO

You're asking whether quality should be qualified.

For words like quality, the unqualified version is not neutral. In your example, creating a quality product refers to a high-quality product. This is perhaps clearer if we use an alternate form, creating a product of quality. If the product was of low quality, then a qualifier would be needed. Note the assumption of high (good) quality in the definition of the unqualified word:

Quality adjective, informal Of good quality; excellent: he’s a quality player - ODO

Compare this with the phrase built for speed, where a car described this way would be praising its ability to perform at high speed, not low speed.