Over the course of my professional life with laptops, I've used Apple, Alienware, Dell and Lenovo machines. I can safely say that the three-day turnaround in an actual bricks & mortar store offered by Apple is far and away the best service I've ever received (the worst being a two-week wait that didn't resolve the issue!).

Regarding the business-level support, I think it's fair enough for the store to deliver a baseline level of support to consumers for free and a paid-for service for people who need priority and/or loaner machines to cover the repair period. I personally don't think that yelling at managers should result in priority over other people in the queue.

I think the main issue here is that because Apple integrate their batteries like they do, it's not possible to perform what was once a simple repair yourself. I'm personally okay with that, because the outstanding battery life on my MacBook Pro is a boon almost every single day.