Are Samsungs really that bad?

[EricJ]

I'm hoping to get a low-end 3d-ready 40-50" for <>$1000 (no Insignia or Vizio, thank you, I'm stingy but not an idiot ) and as I have no intention of getting a Plasma, the only low-end LED/LCD's I see at Best Buy are Panasonic, Sony (one or two), and lots and lots of Samsungs.

As I understand it, the Panasonics are sweet, and the Sonys are Nice If You Can Get Them, but require an additional add-on Transmitter to get 3-D signal.
Otherwise, I looked up the customer reviews on various Samsung models, and almost every single model had at least a few reviews of "The thing died on me in six months/two years!"
I've been using a Toshiba TV all this time, so I can't speak for the general reliability of Samsung as a brandname....But should I panic? I'm not sure whether I want to hear "Oh, buy one anyway", just that user-submitted reviews tend to fluctuate between "new owner and "revenge" posts, and the description of the tech failures seem to be suspiciously common between the specific Samsung models.
Any battle stories from experienced users?