when my 360 died, microsoft left it up to their partner (best buy). who hassled me about their absurd return policy despite my having purchased their extended service plan that clearly covered the situation. after a frustrating experience that required forty-five minutes of my time and escalation past the first tier of management, i did get new hardware.
I then got home and found out that the XBox Live content i'd purchased was tied to my old (now-dead) hardware. If i didn't have an active internet connection, it couldn't be used on the new hardware. Most times I'm connected, so it wasn't a -huge- deal -- but it still bit me in the ass a few times until Microsoft released their fix for the DRM situation (18 months later).
To sum-up: the value Apple offers isn't in the hardware specs. It's in the single point of responsibility, excellent customer service and lack of bullshit.
I don't know a single person who fits the straw man of 'buying apple to be cool'. Everyone I actually know who owns apple products switched out of sheer frustration with the Microsoft model of eighteen levels of indirection and blame game nonsense whenever anything goes wrong.
It appears to be very difficult for people to see this though. When the original iPod came out, some people were claiming it was over-priced while other people were removing the hard-drive and selling it on for more than the cost of the entire iPod.
Also if, when you compare Macs and PCs, you do so in terms of "HW power" then you are missing the biggest part of their value proposition: software.
It perplexes me that Apple products sell as well as they do. I find Apple's value proposition to be questionable. For example, compare an iPod to just about any comparable media player, or a Mac to a comparable PC (in terms of HW power).
I think Microsoft is very smart to point this out, as I do not think this perception has reached the general public. Also, there's a line in the commercial like, "I guess I'm not cool enough to be a Mac person." A clever way for Microsoft to imply that Mac owners are paying extra for the Apple image. This is also an idea that I do not think has really reached the general public.