It's funny how the Microsoft fanboys on here are now blaming me for not returning my SB, or for not looking at reviews before I bought it. As if that's the problem here.
I bought my SB as soon as they went on sale, so I had limited opportunity to look at reviews. In any event, all the initial reviews were glowing, partially because the reviewers were furnished with different hardware than what would actually be shipped to paying customers, and partially because they did not use the machines for long enough to realize how persistent some of the more serious bugs were.
I did not return my SB because everyone, including Microsoft, kept promising that the bugs would be fixed. When you have replaced your work laptop with a new one, it is not a simple matter to just return it and start again. I am too busy to be returning laptops and setting them up again, just like I am too busy to be reinstalling Windows every time a Microsoft CS guy in India has no idea what the problem is.
I do not take responsibility for buying a buggy piece of hardware from Microsoft. Microsoft advertised this machine as "the ultimate laptop", and put the weight of its reputation behind this product. How in the world was I to know that the marketing claims were bogus and the hardware was nowhere near ready to be sold to actual customers?
Anyways, as I cannot return my SB, I will soldier on and hopefully the problems will be fixed. But I will certainly never buy another piece of hardware from Microsoft without very careful deliberation and research beforehand.