Refurbished Macbook Pro 1.83 received May 12 - Great!

Hi All:
I realize there are many having issues with their Macbooks, and I was on the fence about purchasing one for a long time. I know there are many reading these forums and are thinking "Should I buy one?" I was one of these folks until I made the jump. I was wondering like many of you, if I buy a refurb 15" for $1699, will it arrive looking and feeling new?
First, I can tell those of you who are thinking about saving a few bucks and going with the refurb that this is a good move, at least from my experiences in the past. My Macbook 15/1.83 arrived looking brand-spanking new and all hardware works as expected. No scratches, no case issues, no screen issues, etc...beautiful. I have ordered refurbs before from Dell and IBM and they looked used. My new Macbook Pro looks gorgeous. Mine arrived 5 business days from order from the Apple site in a decent box, with all accessories included.
All hardware has checked out fine and is in working order - no pixel issues, keyboard issues, battery, cd/dvd drive, etc...
I am still monitoring the heat issue, so I won't comment on that here just yet. I use 3 other laptops in various work roles so I am well used to laptop heat issues in both Macs and PeeCee's. In fact, I removed some small one inch fans from a dead rack server I had and wired those to a USB cable with a small custom case I made and use those to cool my laptops when using them for extended time. I regularly see 20-30 degree differences in temperature by "manually cooling" myself. I know many of you will say this is not a solution to a hot laptop that should not run this hot to begin with. I'm not arguing that certainly, just sharing my own methods for what they are worth.
I do use a Linksys cable router WRT54G and when I first joined my Macbook Pro to the network with a static IP, I experienced the network-wide freeze. I changed my security to WPA Personal and have not had an issue since.
So far, VERY happy with my purchase. I was upgrading from a Powerbook 12" 1Ghz as my primary home laptop and this is much much improved. I also have various PowerMac G4's around and a 17" 1Ghz in the house for comparison.
Anyway, this posting is for the benefit of those thinking hard about buying a new MacBook Pro, and/or thinking of a refurbished unit. My experience has been solid and I feel like a found a great buy. I used the money saved to plop in more RAM and grab some accessories.
I hope the others in this forum find resolution to their various issues.

Hey thanks for posting this - I know this is a site for problems and seeing so many does make me doubt my upcoming 15" MBP purchase. But it's nice to see a positive review every once in a while and I know there are probably more sucess stories than problems. Thanks again.

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    the newer of the two may be the better one to get, as
    it has later Thunderbolt  with higher capacities, too.
    Look into mactracker or other specification chart that
    can be opened beside each other (as I have now) &
    then you can see sections in each model, one at a
    time. MacTracker shows general-software-memory+
    graphics-connections-history by category.
    2013 model Thunderbolt, Hard Drive Interface, graphics
    spec all look good. Not sure if the history of graphic issue
    in the dual-graphic card model 2012, was overcome or not.
    However this may require some research...
    If yours is one that shipped with Mavericks OS X 10.9
    you may do well to get a copy of the installer on a
    USB and dedicate it as a backup or set up a second
    drive or other device to safe a download of the installer
    and/or a copy-clone of the Mavericks. The limited total
    of RAM available may not be a problem, with both units
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    With either choice, be sure to get & make suitable backup
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