you just made my blood pressure go up a few points. The "killer feature" in PA is it's "uninstall" button. I've literally had my sound not work after an ubuntu installation, uninstalled PA, and it immediately worked fine.
I've had audio problems with OSS and ALSA too, in the past. Mostly with ALSA. Overall, PA is an improvement over those, but of course every change can bring new breakage, which was the original point.