I don't see why that's so hard to believe buddy. I worked for a very large company for 13 years that only used Dell with Gold Support (
I left the company because I was tired of traveling and relocating). Now I'm the CIO of 2 smaller companies for the past 7 years, and I don't use Dell or any other company like Dell. Not because they are bad, but just not cost effective for our business model. I have everything done in house.
I'm still friends with their current CIO, and they still use Dell with Gold support. The last mother board I replaced on one of the Dells there was a Optiplex GX280 and it only took me 5 minutes to swap it out. That's power down install and power up and ready to use. I can't advise any small companies or personal use to have Gold support, but I can say if you have gold support then you really have not worries with there proprietary parts. The service center was about 30 minutes away. I could call the service ticket in and they would hand deliver the parts the same day. They would either replace it or if I had time I would have them leave the part (
Because I enjoy replace it myself as well). I'm sure someone will disagree, but I'm just sharing my experience.