I thought I was just being unfair and that I just must have had bad luck. It was my bad experiences that actually turned me into a researchaholic when I buy stuff now.
When I last considered a Sony product a number of years ago, it became very quickly apparent that when you compare features per dollar with any compatible product line, Sony always has the least amount of specs or features in the price range.
That backed up my grumpiness to some degree of justification. Then I listened to a CBC radio special that was discussing the trend beginning in the mid to late 70s of companies starting to rely more and more on marketing instead of product quality. Sony was very frequently used as an example of a company that poured tons of money into R&D and as a result became know as true innovators in the electronics industry. However, through interviews with former staff and management, it then described how over time people saw huge portions of their R&D departments shut down and funds were diverted to inversely growing marketing departments. Quality was purposefully cheapened but prices remained the same based on the company's "brand."
Finally the last straw for me back in 2005 was the Sony trojan that they snuck into their music label CDs. Play the CD on your computer and it secretly installed a program there as a rootkit. This prevented you from playing it or other similarly coded Sony CDs so you couldn't copy them. It was the early days of copy protection but no one should be able to install something on my PC that I don't authorize. Also, copy protection, OK if you feel you must, but now I can't listen to it either?
Sadly, in the end, I suck at holding grudges as I did buy a PS3.
Rant over, as I just defeated myself with that last sentence.
