I've been running 2 Shuttles for 5 years now, under excruciating conditions at times (carried 1 in hand luggage overseas, powered the other on a square-wave 12V inverter for months and we've been living in the tropics for over 3 years with no aircon - with both running 24/7 most of the time) and both are still running fine.
All the problems I've had are either MY fault:
clean out fans more regularly, use current drivers and don't let kids plug things in,
OR faulty components: 2 DVD burners and an AGP card so far.
A re-install every couple of years is inevitable.
I don't need over-textured games in HD (this cycle of need will never end for some)... just movies and documents (and up-time).
The small form factor (with excellent heatsink), full feature set and expandability easily compensate for the risk of proprietary replacement parts IMO - otherwise just buy a "standard sized" box from anywhere and see how you go. If you have no tech skills then get personal with a local store that can provide support with a minimum of transport.
No hardware vendor is (has or will be) perfect and computer technology moves too fast to achieve ubiquity (and the perfect stability that comes with that), but Shuttle systems get so many things right they shouldn't be ignored - just pick a model to suit your needs.
I'll definitely get another when the need arises, and I'll be hoping Shuttle haven't dropped the ball yet. But it's all part of the fun of consumerism.
Cheers,
Rik
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