Preface: Today two of my co-workers were lamenting over a similar phenomenon that you described, in addition to describing their MBP hardware troubles (dead motherboards, in this instance). Their solution was to buy another macintosh.
Why is this the solution? I don't buy the argument that other PC makers are worse. If my laptop died after 2 years, especially if I paid Apple prices for it, I'd be so pissed off that I would buy just about anything but another Apple device.
Have you tried using a quality PC with a modern distribution of Mint or something installed? I think you might rethink your position about "everyone else being worse". Take this with a grain of salt, I've had the same dell laptop for 5 years with Xubuntu and 0 problems. If I didn't have that experience my outlook would likely be different.