I don't work for Dell, Was hired by them and turned the position down. In favor of the job I have now.
Here's my take on a few things.........
My company uses about 60 Dell desktops, 45 Dell notebooks and 2 Dell servers. Since deploying the desktops between January and February of this year, we've had zero hardware problems. The notebooks, deployed in August of last year, have had a total of 6 service calls. 3 for bad screens and 3 for keys which fail to operate after the notebooks have been in continuous operation for more than 1 hour. On all 6 units, Dell sent out a repairman to replace motherboards, keyboards and screens. Next day service. The repairman was good and quick, by the way.
We don't have Premier Access - yet. My company is paying for the online course for myself and my assistant so we can get Premier Access. I have friends in notebook and desktop support and e-mail them during the day on an occassional problem. Can't call them because they are so busy.
On the refurbished components: Dameon, if you are reading this, correct me if I'm wrong. Every now and then Dell dumps components here in Austin. I've managed to get some. Acquaintance of mine had something like 2000 internal zip drives for Inspiron 3000, 3500 and 4000 notebooks.
Each box was labeled REFURBISHED. However, one opens each box and each unit is brand new - with a Dell part number. Saw him with cases of older hard drives. 6.4 and 8.4 GB drives. All the drives were sealed in static bags. The differing factor again was the Dell part number. We call them "infected" because no manufacturer, except Maxtor, will honor the warranty on them.
From what I can gather, Dell had issues with the "refurbished" thing a couple of years ago. Legal litigation. So, even though the drive you receive says refurb, it's more than likely new.
The series of IBM drives you have received was problematic from the manufacturer - IBM.
My best advice to you is this. When calling them up again, ask to speak with a manager after detailing your experience with three bad drives to the tech who takes the call. Describe your problems in a cool, diplomatic manner. Get his/her e-mail address, if you can and send links about this problem. I'm sure the IBM problem is posted on a couple of websites. Anyway, inquire to management about a different brand of drive. They have them in warehouses.
In my opinion, Dell is the best of the PC manufacturers when it comes to support. If I required a large lot of desktops or notebooks for a company, I'd go with Dell. For a small lot of desktops, I'd build them myself.