I'm with you, OS X just seems to always be in the way of getting stuff done now a days, there was quite a long time where OS X just stayed out of your way, that's no longer the case. I have also had my share of hardware issues - wifi/blue tooth radios that stop working after two years(just gotta replace the logic board), displays that stop working to name a few. The sad fact is that the amount of Apple annoyances/frustrations now reminds me of of Microsoft which is the reason I switched to begin with.

Out of curiosity what hardware are you maybe looking at?