I feel for the people in New Orleans. Nonetheless, I feel as if it's getting too much exposure at the expense of many other news items by the media. It feels like some kind of smoke screen and that something nefarious could or will happen by the political powers that be. Not saying that they orchestrated it or anything, I just think the over exposure allows for easy behind the scenes running through of legislation, signing something into law or just anything under our noses while we pay too much attention to New Orleans.
Dell came out on top because they never went for bottom-dollar position. They were always 10% or so higher than the competition like Gateway, HP, Compaq, etc, but sold a product that was alot more than 10% better. They somehow struck a balance between providing quality hardware like Apple and good prices (i.e. they omitted Apple's "you're cool" surcharge). I've recommended them to non-computer-savvy people for many years because thier tech support was always tremendously better than anyone else (whether it is actually good is a matter of debate).
I never detected a quality difference one way or the other. And I still prefer retailers with a physical preference, I hate waiting for shipping (esp. for returns type stuff) and/or making appointments.
I've had a Gateway computer for about three years now. It works so much better than the Dells at work, even the computers with the same set up. My at home computer even has a Celeron processor rather than a Pentium. It works really good, as long as I work to keep it free of viruses and adware. Same thing goes for the Pentium 2 200mHz Gateway that I had before this one. I only really upgraded because the old one couldn't handle the newfangled HP 3*in*1 product I bought. Still, I like the speed and such of this new one. It can handle video, too.