Just to add to what pickle said about motocross, I know where you're coming from too. My best friend races sport bikes nation wide for a team called Chronic Motorsports. I know what issues these things can have and Ive also seen the life threatening aspects of that sport. Ive seen my friend crash on many occasions, sometimes it was real bad and others not so bad. That aspect of racing comes with the territory. But when there was a problem with a bike in some respect he always canned it for something that worked better on the track. He was always running suzukis and kawasakis in the 600cc class and always made fun of Yamahas because of some quality issues. But the Yamaha 600 is like the bike to have right now and hes getting blown away by them on the track on his Kawi. So now he owns a Yama even though at some point he said hed never own one.
So you see In the end being so stringent on brand loyalty can cost you races or even a better experience. I have set up my truck in soo many different ways and still cant get it down with this truck but thats more my problem than anything. And I am a good driver. And for some reason Im faster with another brand truck? Its no coincidence I assure you. Maybe the truck is not for me who knows
but this is a whole different topic in itself. Mainly I wrote this to relate to what you were saying.