If the 360 refurbs are failing at a worse rate, that's another issue than what I mean to address, that getting refurbished equipment as a replacement is normal. I don't see how a technology site can use that against Microsoft.

Now, if MS is doing a terrible job at reburbishing it's Xbox 360's, then I'm glad I got the extended replacement plan at Best Buy, and got a new console in return on my replacement. ::grin::

No matter how you cut it, M$ is selling a faulty machine.

I would have bought one already if this wasn't the case. And all signs show that their refurbs, and even new editions [ read: Elite ], still suffer from the same design flaw.

I believe that M$ has dug themselves such a large hole, that honestly dealing with this problem by instating a recall would be a death blow to the Xbox brand. Simply because shareholder confidence would evaporate.

Nearly five billion in the red --AND THEN-- a recall?

I can tell you all this, M$ has sold me on buying a PS3 if I decide to get another console this round.

Yeah, I guess you're right about refurbs. Sorry, but if my PS3 breaks down, I'll make sure it happens at least three times, then bestbuy has to schuck out a new one(I predict this will happen when the 45 nm chip comes out )

I didn't realize about the 2yr req for Europe, that's pretty cool, I guess it's a trade off for a higher price... Funny, no one mentions these kind of things when they complain about higher prices. I guess it's a difference in point of view.

More fire for the failure rate flames:
http://www.dailytech.com/Retailers+Estimate+Xbox+360+Failure+Rate+High+as+33+Percent/article7892.htm

 umm thats not how the repair process should go at all. 

If I send my laptop in for repairs, I only get a different laptop if its unrepairable, otherwise the laptop has replacement parts placed back in and send it back. Why cant the console repair business work like the PC Repair business?

No one here has actually dealth with MS to know what happens, eh?

#1. You don't send your HDD, just the 'box. The HDD stays with you, and has every bit of information on the HDD, so getting the refurb does nothing, you keep everything. The only thing that needs re-done is re-syncing the controllers to the HDD.

#2. There is no 90 day warranty on the X360, it's 1 year. I do believe the refurbs are 90 days, but I am unsure. You can always pay like $25 and get an extra year from MS.

#3. If something like that fails, do you really expect them to ship you a new $400 system? If so, it'd be easy to force a failure on a 360 and make 'em give you a new one if you didn't like your old one. I have a refurb, and it plays better than the new one I owned.

#4. The reason MS does refurbs rather than send your own unit back is 2 fold. 1. They will actually send it back to you (your unit) if it's quickly fixable. I assume if the RROD is because of the sauder issue, then they send a refurb and fix it in-house to cut return time. In my case, I got a refurb shipped to me in 1 day of my 360 arriving at MS's repair center (I got my 360 back before Alarcist's wii, but my died later, and I took longer to send mine in)

For me there is a bright side to all of this ...

I recently bought a refurbished XBox 360 Priemium which (after taxes and shipping) costs less than the XBox 360 core (before taxes and shipping)

30% is a really catastrophic number

Even 5% would be catastrophic.  Microsoft will not be able to continue denying this.