I've used Macs exclusively since 1985 & have a lot of familiarity with much of the hardware & software since. Additionally, for over 2 great years (at least in my opinion - I was finally fired for devoting more attention to clients problems than office metrics allowed) I was one of those Tech Support folks you get to talk to about your AppleCare problems.
One thing you have to remember is that in these forums (& even more so on the Tech Support phone lines at Apple), you hear more about the problems that people are having than about their glowing endorsements. People weren't calling us to tell us about how great their Macs were & how happy they were with them. As many calls as we were dealing with, we were still dealing with an extremely small subset of the Mac customer universe (& frankly a small subset of those that did call wouldn't have been entirely happy with any computer even if they were paid to take them).
My opinion? When I buy a new Mac I'll still get AppleCare, because even though I don't personally expect to need it, I'm much prefer to have it & not need it than need it and not have it. I mean we're not talking vacuum cleaners or microwaves here, where you just throw the broken one out & go get another. I ran a private business for many years where my Mac was my chief partner. While the business eventually burnt me out, I still got several more productive years out of the Macs I'd used, whereas if my Macs had died an unprotected death, I'd have been SOL a whole lot sooner.
Yeah, AppleCare is a gamble, & most likely you won't need it, but it sure is reassuring to know that you do have it if you do need it, and that peace of mind is definitely worth the cost.
