Consumer _anything_ is going to be hit or miss. This is known. Buying Dell's consumer line and having a hard time trying to cash in on the consumer warranty doesn't mean Dell is shit, just means their priorities are elsewhere. XPS in particular I see lots of complaints about so I don't know why one would willingly buy what one _knows_ is their lowend (yes, it's lowend crap - we know this because they advertise it as "consumer highend"). It probably still gets the job done for most people who own one.
Buy a recent, used Latitude next time and quit worrying - they are great.