Two incidents this week that makes me question the wisdom that "you get for you pay for"
1- The SAMSUNG Label Printer18 months ago we needed a couple of label printers for the office. At the time I suggested just buy a couple of basic ones at throw-away prices. Oh no, said the IT bods, you need quality and you need to pay for that. $1600.00 later two SAMSUNG label printers were installed. One died recently. It was only on its second roll of labels. The verdict from the techies is that the gizmo has died. It cannot be repaired. And, oh yea, the warranty was only 12 months any way.
I feel a $99 Brother or Dymo coming on.
2- The Coolermaster Power Supply14 months old. Bought at relatively substantial expense for the HTPC that ran XPMCE, then Vista and is now the backend and main front end for our home entertainment system.
After losing a couple of HDDs to poor power supplies and knowing a little of electronics I figured there was little value in inexpensive PS units.
The Coolermaster rolled over during the night while the Myth box was transcoding a bunch of stuff. 
Naturally, as you'd expect, it's 2 months out off warranty. I don't know if there's a point to trying to get it fixed.
So, what's the next step?
At the moment the Mythbox is running on a $25.00 500w powersupply. I keep a couple at hand.
I'm starting to subscribe to the theory of some of my mates that hardware should be bought as cheaply as possible. Maybe they're right because "getting what you paid for" isn't holding much meaning for me at the moment.
Cheers