I hear you. It certainly can be nice to take a broken machine back to the builder and say, "it's broke, fix it". But you can only do that for 1 year anyway, in most cases.
99.9% of the time, all you are doing is assembling parts that, thanks to the ATX Form Factor standard, are guaranteed to fit together and work. And typically, all you need is a #2 Phillips screwdriver and a strategically placed tongue - and a well lit workbench or dinning room table.
I tell my clients there is no way I can compete in price with Dell, HP, Acer, etc. because I cannot go to Gigabyte, WD, Crucial, Antec and promise to buy 1,000,000 motherboards, drives, RAM sticks, or cases over the next year. But I (you) can build a better computer in any class - because we pick the components for our needs. And we don't cut corners to save a few pennies with a cheap PSU, or flimsy case with poor or noisy cooling.
If hesitant to build yourself, I recommend you pick out a motherboard, then download the manual. It will tell you where every wire goes. Do the same for the case, and power supply. Frankly, the hardest part I have assembling a computer is seeing what I am doing when connecting the case's front panel buttons and lights.
Speaking of dinning room tables - I hope everyone has Happy Thanksgiving - and if going out shopping, see a shrink!
