You can purchase any type of support you want. Buy a "cheap as crap" computer and get "cheap as crap" service. When my mother bought her system last year, I told her to make sure she upgrades her support contract. When she had a problem earlier this year, Dell sent a tech to her house the next day to get the system fixed.

As far as out sourcing goes... Dell is doing it's best to keep US shipped systems manufactured in the US. Dell's current policy is to build manufacturing plants as close to the customer as possible to save on shipping. Dell has built 2 new manufacturing plants in the US this year alone! This policy seems to be working and can only get better with the rising cost of fuel.

Dell is just trying to stay alive in the market that is traditionally dominated by Asia.

The funny thing is that I'm writing this from China as I set up a new factory that will ship systems only to China and Japan. Then I go to Ireland where we ship systems only to Europe.