Um...You do realize that's what I just said, right?

If users are happy with XB360 quality and to pay for online gaming, why lose time and money to give them more reliable HW and free online?

Totally agree with that.  I hate the whole its exclusive, oh wait its not, or it's multi, oh wait it's not stuff.  Either take the risk and go exclusive (for non 1st party, which of course will always be exclusive) or make it a proper multi title.  If I had my way timed exclusives would be deemed to represent unfair trading and actually impossible.

Yes it was rushed but the RROD issue would probably still exist even if they had delayed the launch. The motherboard design would have run concurrent to the CPU being developed and ultimately even with more testing and analysis they would still be stuck with the same unreliable designs. The 360 design was flawed from the off and it's only through reducing the heat output of the CPU and GPU they've managed to lower overall heat in the system enough to brig the reliability up to more normal levels.

Neither Sony or Microsoft anticipated the consequences of the move to lead free solder in BGA chips on their designs hence both had issues. The difference is Sony moved to the 40GB quickly and produced a better board design and cooler running GPU and CPU earlier hence the poor reliability of the 60GB never became an issue. Microsoft just paper over the cracks and paid their way out of trouble.

I think it was worth it for Microsoft the gamble they took but I fully understand the anger of all those people who got burned before they introduced the 3 year warranty (that includes the moe recent E74 consoles too).

I think I can answer this question even though CGi might not agree with me:

A) Releasing a rushed and faulty hardware console simply for the sake of beating the competition.

B) Moneyhatting third party companies to produce exclusive content (DLC, maps etc) to multi-platform games.

C) Moneyhatting again to create "timed exclusives". In fact MS's efforts on this front has led to Sony start the same, leading to a whole war of 'timed exclusives' with the consumer being the loser.

D) Making the console incompatible with 3rd party accesories thus forcing the consumer to buy their more expensive first party solutions (The hard disk is just one example)

E) Leeching free money from the consumer in the form of paid Online service.

While in A, B and C you can find pros and cons, D and E are pure short sighted greed stuff that backfires on MS:

D) Limited choice of steering wheels can seriously damage racing games sales on XB360 and XB360 choice itself for this genre of gaming. Expensive HDD's, usually not up to date with the latest standard drives usable on PC's and PS3 also damages MS downloadable contents business.

E) While it's fine for a lot of people, you can find even more people not liking it at all.

Being best explained by plain greed even at cost of damaging its own precious customers, D and E also bring hate towards MS.