I feel for ya... really.
It is just that I almost never seem to have any of the problems I keep hearing about.
I did have a moment of dread just yesterday when I upgraded to 10.2.3 through the Software Update panel. I got almost all the way through it when I in my haste to do "stuff" pulled a cable and the machine shut down.
I tried restarting and got as far as a blank blue screen...moment of panic! Of course I have a mirror of my system on another partition, so I booted from that and got the full upgrade from Apple. Did a re-upgrade (basically I just finished it) and everything was back to normal.
Wow... total panic time 15 minutes max.
Try that with Win2K or XP. On the other hand, don't... I have and it 'aint pretty.