It's only real flaw IMO was the superglossy glass screen. Fragile and extremely annoying under fluorescent lights. Plenty of the machines lasted a long time despite the glue deteriorating from heat.
You're right about them spending no money on maintenance because repair is a profit centre for them. Rossman is right about Apple's durability issues, too - almost every generation of MacBook has had at least one significant design flaw (from the 8600GT to delaminating screen coatings).
They're only getting worse as they go over the top with proprietary connectors and interfaces, and iDevice levels of integration. I mean, Apple have reimplemented M.2 and NVMe in their stupid proprietary SSDs at least 4 times now. It's utterly ridiculous. If your custom blade SSD dies, which it inevitably will at some stage, your only options are Apple support or OWC (or gamble with second hand parts).
At least in the past they used to get the human stuff right (mostly). No Apple MacBook has ever shipped with a low quality LCD panel, for example. I've never heard significant coil whine from any Mac. I've never heard any Mac that has loud fans at idle (except under an error condition). I've never had a Mac that burnt me. I've never had a Mac with poor speakers. The trackpads have always been best-in-class. The keyboards have always been very good.
Until 2016.