iHope for the iBook iSituation?

Well, in total desperation, I sent the following email to Steve Jobs, himself:

Dear Mr. Jobs,

Hi, my name is Pete and I need your help.

From 1994 to 2003, I was a PC person. I had friends who used Macs and they always showed such loyalty to the brand. Finally, last fall, I decided to come over "from the darkside" and buy my first Mac. As a freelance writer, I needed a stable, secure, portable system that wouldn't break my bank. In late September of last year, I made the plunge and spent $1400 on an iBook G3. Within a month, I began calling myself a Mac person. Within three months, my logic board failed. Two months after that, my repaired logic board failed. At that point, I called AppleCare and asked for a replacement iBook. They refused. A little over a month after that, my hard drive failed.
In seven months of ownership, my iBook has functioned properly for only six of those months. Would you want to have your computer repaired a fourth time at this point or just replaced? How many break downs would you find acceptable before you stopped trusting the maker of that computer?

Once again, I asked both AppleCare support and this time customer relations (I just got off the phone with them) for a replacement and both refused. I don't mean to sound like a snob, but when I came over from the PCs, I wasn't expecting to 1) have so many hardware problems, or 2) get treated so badly by AppleCare. At this point, I don't want my iBook to be repaired. In fact, I'm not even sure I want a replacement iBook. I don't feel like I can trust the iBook line after what I've been through with it. In fact, I feel like regardless of what anyone else has experienced, going with Apple for me has been a nightmare. I really don't want to go back to PCs, but I've never had these kinds of chronic catastrophic hardware failures with any of the PCs I've owned.

Because of my work, I desperately need a laptop computer that is stable, but I feel like I need to be compensated for losing a month of time with my iBook. I know you're a very busy person, but I'd really appreciate your opinion on this.

24 hours after sending that email off, my cell phone rang. Of course, I didn't answer it because I didn't recognize the number on the caller ID. Moments later, a voice mail was left for me from a woman called Robin at Apple Customer Relations. She was calling in response to an email I sent to Mr. Steve Jobs.

Of course, when I called her back, I got her voice mail.

When I called her back a day after that, I got her voice mail, again. That was Friday. They're closed on the weekend (because customers NEVER need relating to on the weekend) and tomorrow is Monday. I'll try calling again.

Wish me luck!

If they still won't give me a new machine (I will ask for a PowerBook), I will ask for my money back. If they don't give me my money back. I'll have no choice but to bring my iBook in for repair. If this happens, I'll be saving up for a PC laptop.

In the end, I'd rather have a computer that will have a lot of slight screw ups that I can deal with as opposed to huge screw ups that require me to give up my computer for at least a full week at a time.