I'd be afraid to get another $1000-$2500 Apple product without Apple Care. I always hand built my PC's and any problems which occurred hardware wise were always detected during the build, and went back right away for an exchange. I can count that experience on ONE finger. It was a MOBO, and that was in the 10+ years I had been building PC's.
Otherwise, it was Windows which was the root of all other problems.. or safer to say, third party software vendors. (still the fault of the Windows mentality)
With Apple however, there's nary any room for excuses since they hand pick all of their stuff in order for everything to match up really nicely. That said, I've noticed far more cases of hardware failure on this side of the pond vs the other. Why that is, I don't know... But I don't make false claims. It's just my observation in all the years of being on various PC forums, hardware was never really the issue with people.. Windows was.
Now that I'm on the other side of the fence, it seems to be the other way around, in that OS X is really pristine, but perhaps Apple's QC on the hardware side (especially their logic boards and graphic chip sets) isn't as tidy as it used to be. Is it because of the changes in the architecture ? Could be. Could be lots of things.
All I know is that I feel a LOT better having spent an extra couple of bills on Apple Care. I'll be purchasing it for the 13" uMBP before the year is up.
Doug