I travel to the middle of nowhere with my laptop on a regular basis. It either bounces around the trunk of my rental car, get knocked around at the airport, get compressed in overhead baggage on a airline flight, subjected to who knows what while bumping around the nose compartment of a Cessna 402 , bake in the sun while I'm on the tarmac working an issue, or being invaded by sand particles or dust. Despite the unrecommended environment, I never had an issue with my MacBook Pro. I'm still with my MacBook Pro issued to me in 2010 while my colleagues are on their 2nd or 3rd HP or Dell laptop. My first work laptop was a Sony Vaio and it only lasted me 1 year, afterwards I purchased a MacBook Pro and used it for 2 years until the new MacBook Pro was issued to me by my employer. My wife still uses my late 2006 MacBook Pro and it works like new.
The only other person on my team that has a long lasting laptop uses an IBM branded Thinkpad/X40 which works well enough for testing components during intergration otherwise he uses a desktop workstation that we ship to the field. The problems we had with laptops are bad batteries, dead backlight/display, and the problem that plagued our Dell Latitude series - clam shell breaking at the hinges. We hadn't had any noticeable problems with the current high end HP laptops other then being heavier and bulkier than my MacBook Pro and lower battery life.
Regardless of the brand (Apple, HP, Dell, Lenovo) we paid similar price for the equivalent laptop. I don't know how you would consider a MacBook Pro laptop overpriced except maybe when you compare it to a consumer grade laptop sold at your local Walmart. I know several people who are happy with their low priced laptop but they rarely travel with them. They use them at school, sometimes at work, but most of the time safely at home. If you have a similar experience with your purchase then congratulations.