- Your right on the Linux and drivers. Amazing the availability of stuff. I would still suggest finding out what components they are using so you know there are drivers and you don't get stuck.
- Ask to see a picture of the board design. If you can't fix something easily or they are using nonubiquitous parts you are going to be at their mercy when problems arise (one of the great selling points for the Acer). If it looks like a design you can't easily fix, try and decipher what is their real turn around time on warranty work or what is the cost when out of warranty.
I have been lucky enough to have access to the technical people at one of the big data array storage companies. They do a lot of testing on SSDs before they commit to using anything. They are using the Samsung 840 series. They didn't give me their actual failure numbers but told me the failure points on the amount of read/writes are multiples of what Samsung publishes.
Pretty cool you are going through this much effort to buy American. From a practical business point, it is hard to commit someone else's business to 'American' principles when the shiite hits the fan. Most people are freaked when their computer doesn't work for 2 hours. Of course history doesn't repeat itself and there will never be another Pearl Harbor.
From a practical point, I ran out of options of trying to buy nonChinese products when IBM stopped making drives in Hungry. For some reason I am thinking that was around 2002.
My other option is, in fact, the Acer. It's relatively Linux-friendly, and your revelation that they are relatively simple compared to other designs makes them desireable. It scored well in my test this evening at Micro Center.
For sheer design, Lenovo Thinkpad wins hands-down (credit goes to IBM, of course). Solid keyboard, no-nonsense mien... But I won't buy from a company that ships with spyware that relays data to the ChiComs and whose name sounds like a Soviet general secretary, no matter who appealing their slave-labor-built product.
Asus seems a solidly-built product as well, but apparently features BIOS locks that marry it to Windows 8, a nightmare I'd prefer to avoid.