Ive had excellent support in the apple stores I've been to. Out of warranty support, people going out of their way to help, etc.
I've had a battery that was 10 cycles out of warranty and OS X started throwing up scary warnings but nope, it's out of warranty. A charger that just up and died, they did replace it but not after a 20 questions interrogation. When it's a clear problem they've been friendly, but the repair still takes a week since they don't have the parts or expertise in-store.
And I'm super-friendly to support staff - back in the days when I used Palm and Sony Ericsson gear, the would repair user-fault stuff for me no questions asked.
I've heard similar things from others in the EU. And all the love stories I hear are from the US.