You know, I'm usually one to dismiss the whole "bad batch" theory -- and in all likliehood, that's probably still the case now -- but for instance, I know that on Flight 84 that went out from the first shipping group (that I was on), at least four of us in the thread had problems and are waiting for replacements (mine looks like it is shipping out today, a few days early, which is nice -- I probably won't get it until Monday b/c of the holiday weekend, but it's still nice to have it ship). Add to that, I know three other people that were in that same group (not sure if they were on the same plane or not, but they got machines the same time I got mine) who also had problem units.
I've Apple products have problems out of the box before -- it's not a huge thing -- but I've never been able to first-hand know so many cases of people with issues all surrounding the same product type.
Granted, my sample is not scientific and I'm not trying to say that this is indicative of any greater QC issue -- I don't think it is -- but it's just one of those, "well damn, that sucks" sort of things.
It's just odd.
ETA:
OK, fair enough, but it's still a pain in the ass. Frankly, and I love Apple, but they had one choice and one choice only when I discovered the first day I actually got to use my i7 for work that it was defective (and had I not been trying to connect it to a second monitor I might not have figured out the problem until way later) and that was to send me a new unit. That's the only option when a three day old machine is broken, end of story. When the Apple Tech suggested I take it into an Apple Store (where they would most certainly just order me a new one), I had to go all "yeah, I got this Friday after waiting two and a half weeks for delivery, I'm not taking a $2400 computer into the Apple Store when it's 3 days old." and he transferred me to Customer Service and the woman there was wonderful.
As much as I love Apple and Mac OS X, if I was actually told that I'd have to take a machine I just bought -- a BTO machine at that -- in for repair rather than getting a new one sent to me, I'm not sure I'd actually keep the machine. I'll give Apple credit for being courteous and helpful and generally wonderful to deal with, but in this case, sending out a replacement for those of us that JUST got a computer isn't good customer service, it's pretty much what any company should do.
