Let me tell you a story about my 17" unibody MacBook Pro. It's nearly 2 years old now. I used this thing constantly, I use it about 12 hours a day, every day, and carry it around in my backpack every single day. Most weekends, too, even.
Thanks to the glass screen, the screen as as good as it was on day one - and it's the best I've ever had in terms of brightness and clarity. When the screen gets dirty, I scrub it furiously with a napkin. Glass - it doesn't scratch! The alu body is as tight as on day 1. You'd have to look very closely to see any scratches at all - it basically looks brand new.
The battery lasted until 2 days ago, providing around 6 hours real life usage (on a 17" laptop!). Now it's down to 60% capacity at 500 charge cycles - and guess what, Apple is replacing it free under AppleCare warranty.
Nothing shakes. Nothing rattles. The unibody is just as solid as it was new. As is the keyboard and the track pad.
It's blazingly fast too thanks to an SSD I put in the optical drive spot (though that was a little harder than it should have been).
At the end of the day, this is just fantastic quality and it ends up being not only better but also cheaper than any crap quality laptop simply because I can use it for 2 years. Maybe even longer, who knows?
