I'd go with the "stupid microsoft or whatever". I don't remember off hand ever having linux crash on me, and NetBSD has only done it a couple times when I was using an MP kernel (SMP is still experimental in NetBSD). I grabbed some newer kernel source, built it, and haven't had a crash since.
The great thing about unix is that generally as your competence increases, the problems decrease, and your efficiency increases. What would have taken me hours, days, or weeks to figure out when I was a n00b now takes me seconds, minutes, or hours. I can do pretty insane things with just shell scripting, let alone "real" languages like python, perl, php etc. In an environment like windows, that's not quite the case. I see windows "admins" doing their thing, and they're just clicking through the same inane boxes everyone else clicks through. There is much less benefit for becoming competent with windows.
Anyways, back to the subject at hand, you see competent windows people here at AT all the time having problems with windows. That's the problem with a closed system, there's no one to go to except the vendor, and they want you to cough up money for it, and even then you're damn lucky if it gets fixed. With an open system, you can fix it yourself and submit a patch, or file a bug and let someone else fix it. There are no "dead ends".
[/babbling]