+1 on this. For a while Dell had a nice sweet spot. It was cheaper than the aforementioned brands, roughly equal price wise to the likes of Gateway but much more configurable and better customer service, and only a bit more expensive than unknown to me brands back than found in computer shopper. Only way to do better in same budget was to build your own

I recall Dell being early to having a good online store. In fact I think you could only buy Dell computers online at first?

Like any business, success and growth changed their motiviations.

I'm not sure what time period you are referring to. In the UK in the 90s you would call up Dell and talk to them about pricing and specs after seeing an ad like those on https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-golden-age-of-dell-computers.

The customer service experience at the time was great compared to what you'd typically deal with in the UK. I was the person buying computers for my parents' business, my parents' friends, and some of my friends, all through my parent's business . The reps were probably a little confused because they had repeat orders from the same "customer", but knew they were also dealing with a teenager that had done their research. This yielded some fun conversations and I always felt that they wanted to be competitive with their pricing.

Unfortunately, this all changed towards the end of the 90s as PC manufacturers cut costs, moved to the web, and outsourced.

2005-2010 for me