I'd like to say this.
I have been a Dell Customer Since 1997.
I have Several Dells.
1997 Dell Dimension XPS T700r Pentium III 700MHz - Still Runs to this day and boots up perfectly.
2004 Dell Inspiron 8200 Desktop Replacement, Pentium 4M @1.8GHz- Has been completely replaced once due to a mainboard issue. (See comments below) One fan's bearing has failed but this is due to being run 24/7 for 5 years straight. (It became my desktop. Doy)
2006 Dell XPS Gen 4 Pentium 4 Prescott 3.2GHz - Runs effortlessly, only issue now is due to capacitor aging due to being a 24/7 folding rig and running a high consumption graphics card that wasn't intended for the system. Putting the stock card in, stability returns. (the 300 watt PSU can't supply the juice the 8800GTS, 3 hard drives, OC'd proc, and 2 Gigs of memory need to run stable.)
2008 Dell Dimension 3000 Haven't messed with it much. Works fine. Starts up fine. No issues.
Now I'm not a fan of the newer dells. Their case quality feels cheap... but I can say this.
I own a 2011 Alienware Area-51. The quality is outstanding. Especially considering the new XPS series is a fail IMO. Alienwares quality has not slipped. The price however is exuberant. However many of the features in the case are nice touches and it's all pretty nice. I have only had one problem and that is I have 6GB installed and windows says 2 is "reserved". A quick call to Alienware and next business day a tech shows up to my house and fixes the issue.
A lot of people go off of hearsay and it's incorrect bias.
Dell's case construction and quality has been slipping, but Alienware obviously hasn't. I agree that the price is over the top, but I'm satisfied with my Alienware.
The only computers I have EVER had in my shop HABITUALLY for HARDWARE issues were HP's and Compaqs. Most of which were due to faulty power supplies. Some had fan failures causing overheating and rebooting. Also the lack of negative case pressure caused stale air and hot spots. I have only had one Dell in ever, and that was due to software failure due to malware. Data recovery and Reformat, problem solved.
I tend to have Toshiba laptop CD drives fail for some odd reason. Toshiba Sound device problems as well, (weird driver issue I presume because a clean install fixed all the problems) All of these are systems that are brought to me for repair.
So from personal experience, I can say for a fact that Dell systems are not worse than any other computer manufacturer out there. I've never had a trouble with Dell support, I broke my laptop screen and they fixed it next business day. No cost to me. My laptop's mainboard had a fault in it (seemed like a capacitor failed) and they sent me a new one next day and told me to send in my old one at my leisure.
So I have had experience with Dell, with HP, Compaq, Gateway, Alienware, Apple, Blackberry, Sony, Toshiba, APC, Numerous companies and I have been dealing with them for YEARS.
Dell isn't as bad as every tries to make them out. The majority of their issues are ID10T- Problem exists between keyboard and chair- when it comes down to it.
In laptops, look which brand comes up as #1?
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/1659/top_10_power_laptops.html
Dell?
In top 10 Performance PC's Alienware takes the charts at #9.
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/1645/top_10_power_desktop_pcs.html
Dell comes in #1 with All purpose laptops...
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/1657/top_10_allpurpose_laptops.html
Dell makes the top 10 in main stream desktops:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/3146/top_mainstream_pcs.html
So I can only counter that the reason behind it having that ranking due to consumer reports, is due to it being one of the best selling computer manufacturers. When you have a lot more systems, you going to have a lot more problems... it's common sense. Nothing is infallible. I'm not saying Dell is the best (by all means please BYO), but they are just like any other large sales manufacturer out there.