Agree about Raspberry Pi being flaky - mostly due to cheap SDcards and/or people switching the power off without shutting down the system. But that is a typical problem with Linux on any hardware without ACPI.

Although the various Chinese Linux boards are good value for money, the documentation is often hard to read for a beginner. With the Raspberry Pi there is a mass of learner oriented materials on the internet.

As for buying a Raspberry Pi at a fair price, check out Raspberry Pi Foundations website for links.