If Apple has support people who speak fluent English, then that would be an advantage for sure.
My experiences re: "They are junk" have not matched yours. I haven't personally had ANY hardware problems beyond a failed hard drive (could happen to any notebook) with any laptop I've worked with. I've supported dozens of them from Dell, HP, Compaq, Toshiba and Acer.
Though I don't like how the O/S and partitioning were set up, I've had no problems at all with my inexpensive Acer laptop, which is my most recent experience (approx. 1 yr old)
Anecdotal evidence can easily go both ways. I'm certainly not bashing Apple, as their quality is high and their reputation well-earned. I'm just surprised that the premium option would sell better in a difficult economy.
Apple support is US and Canada. All native English speakers.
Well, people know quality, they know good service and they know a good product...
Apple has it all together, and the increasing sales shows that more and more people are coming on board. The stats for the Apple Stores are that over 50% of the buyers are not former Macintosh users, but users coming over from other systems.