Thanks for the response. I've done pretty much everything to help solve the lag issue - from verifying and repairing disks to doing a clean install. The problem is that it's very sporadic.. I doubt I could replicate it at an Apple store unless I got very lucky. I've been trying to pinpoint what causes the issue so I have activity monitor running almost 24/7 so I can take a quick peek when the issue occurs. My CPU and RAM usage are almost always low, regardless of system performance. I've never dealt with Apple on these issues so I don't know how they would respond; either tell me I'm crazy or swap something out? Not sure. I ran a hardware test by pressing D at startup and all comes out clean.
I can't vouch for others, but I'll tell you why I prefer Apple products.
First off, while I have had issues in 20+ years of owning Apple stuff, they are always fixed by Apple. I've had some duds, some crappy products, you name it. It's not all been perfect, but Apple has, at least for me, ALWAYS made it right.
And, far more of the products ARE very good compared to their competitors.
I've had an HP and an Acer DUD, I mean COMPLETE dud. The HP ended up in the trash after a year of fighting with HP, even getting the attorney general involved. The computer would never boot. It would run for a minute then randomly shut off. I sent it back, 3 months later it got sent back to me with a letter that they no longer stock the component (logic board) that had failed and thus could not repair the computer. So I called and asked if I could have a refund, they said "No, we don't give refunds, you have to go through the store". Well guess what, it had been over 3 months thanks to HP's slow service!
It took a couple YEARS, but finally the Missouri Attorney General got me my refund. Sheesh!
The Acer was taken care of, it was a laptop, but it took 4 months to get it back from their repair facility. However they were exceptionally helpful and polite.
However, my Apple products have always been promptly taken care of if any issue at all. My iPhone's speaker quit working, so I went to an Apple store and they gave me another one, bada-bing. My friend brought his 5 year old out-of-warranty MacBook in when the hard drive failed. They replaced it for FREE out of warranty.
So, for ME, it's the service. It's the fact that, if I get a dud, it's okay, because Apple is going to make it right.
So the reason for that is to A) Answer your question (why we buy them despite the occasional dud product), and B) Encourage you to see if Apple will make it right for you. If possible, I've always had much better luck at the Apple store, though over the phone it's not bad. Apple Store Geniuses have the authority to kind of 'bend the rules' a little, and they often do to make a customer happy. Some of us get luckier than others (like my friend getting a free hard drive for his 5 year old MacBook), but still, they are gonna make you happy.
Apple HAS had some REAL duds in the past though. But they've always made it right. OS X 10.0 was bug city and folks hated it, it wasn't the solid stable Mac OS they were used to. So Apple release OS X 10.1 for free. Remember 'antennagate' with the iPhone 4? Personally I never had an issue but lots of people did. Apple vehemently denied the issue, but, despite that, offered free cases for several months. A free solution to remedy the issue. My Samsung Windows Mobile phone had that issue like no tomorrow, if your finger touched the back at the bottom the call dropped, you lost signal. I and others who owned it accepted it as a quirk of a smartphone, it was no big deal. But because of Apples reputation, they are under an intense microscope to provide flawless products, even if a particular issue is common among the competition.
My $0.02 anyway!