Thinkpad E430: Is this some kind of a practical joke?

Question

I purchased a Thinkpad E430 in May this year, personally. Generally I don't post
reviews, but this product deserves it.
First of all, as a developer, my reasons for purchase of the machine were to get
a computer with a decent keyboard and build quality better than the general
consumer products. I don't have many complaints with the keyboard. The media
keys should not be activated by `fn` key instead of the function keys. But
considering the hardware and build quality, E430 fails miserably.
I expected my E430 to hold up for a year at least, but it isn't designed for
that apparently. This is the case when it was not my primary computer, I spend
about 80% of my time on the office computer. The laptop just degrades while
sitting there it seems.
It has been about 200 days and so far, there have been 3 hardware service
requests processed on the machine: Dead pixels on screen, dysfunctional
microphone and then a broken case (probably because of the previous 2
services). Plus there is the faulty BIOS, which issue
(http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-Edge-S-series/Fn-key-legacy-mode-is-unreliable/td-p/865927)
has been ever pending.
All this was fine until a few days back, when I realized the screen has
developed a permanent spot in the middle - because of the way the screen and
keyboard are placed. I haven't been able to find time to place another service
request. Plus the behaviour of the people at the lenovo center is just so
terrible that I am reluctant to visit them.
I have owned 4 laptops from other brands - 3 consumer (2 HP, 1 Sony) and 1
business (HP). None of these computers ever failed or required any hardware
maintenance. A couple of were served upto 5 years, after which the hardware was
just obsolete. Infact I have used Lenovo's ThinkPad X230 for a couple of months
which was a decent experience.
It is clear that Lenovo's plan is to make as much as they can from the ThinkPad
brand name while they slowly kill it off.
After the purchase, I actually recommended this machine to a couple of my
friends. Mow my opinions regarding computers are valued much less thanks to the
E430. What I wish now, is for someone to just take this machine away from me. It
reminds me of a mistaken purchase (which actually seldom happens). I was never
in my 3-4 calls with the sales people told about E430's quality even when I
specifically enquired. It were the Lenovo's service guys that told me that the
case is the same with all the other unit's which exist of this "ThinkPad" Edge.

Answer 1

Im described as a thinkpad evangalist but I too agree with this disregard for the brand.
Having owned multiple thinkpads over the years its very obvious that there is no longer care for build quality and / or knowledge on the phone.
My X230T was plaqued with simple issues and phone support was laughable - the bottom line is to never let lenovo service your machine but to keep trying to get them to send you a unit that isnt broken.  Ive had lenovo say things are warrentable one day and not the next.
My brand new TPY arrived with the screen bezel popped off in the right hand corner - this isnt a warrentable issue!? and the laptop itselve is plagued with driver / sleep errors rending the trackpad frozen / disconnected for large periods of time.
All these issues would be resolved if someone in the factory took 5 seconds to look at the machine, or support to atually note down the failures that we are telling them about over the phone rather than mockingly being told that the "head engineer" doesnt regard xxxxx as a failure.