Well, for starters, it costs a lot of money to run the Xbox Live servers and all those game servers. So companies may decide they don't want to eat the tens of thousands of dollars a year it costs to keep those going, and expect you to pony up your fair share if you use them.
There are plenty of examples in the PC world of this as well. World of Warcraft probably being the single most visible example. You have to pay a monthly fee to continue playing that game. That's on top of an Internet connection and whatever else.
Laggy servers might just be a result of you living on a tiny little island that is New Zealand. When you figure the total population density of the nation, then figure only some small percentage likely own a 360, and only some small percentage of that are on Live, and then only some small percentage of those people will be playing the same game as you... Well, it's all about location, location, location. Even if the servers were fairly close, geographically, like Australia or Japan, you'd still be looking at having to use a trans-pacific cable, which will have limited bandwidth that EVERYONE has to share.
I don't know anything about the change to the Live service in your area you talk about, but my guess is that it's a parental control thing. Or the NZ Parliament passed some law mandating the change.
Second, I highly doubt the laser did anything to your gears of war disc. I know in science fiction films people have lasers that can cut through anything, but the reality is any laser powerful enough to even damage a DVD, would probably require a power supply about as big as the 360 itself. Lasers are just a single, focused, light beam. To ramp up the intensity on them that they could actually damage anything, with current technology, requires a massive power source.
Now, there was an issue with some 360s that caused them to scratch discs and make them unplayable. It happened most often if you shifted the orientation of the console while it was turned on.
Accessories have always been the money makers for almost everything. Consoles are sold at a loss. It's only now, about 5 years in, when Sony and Microsoft are breaking even on production costs. A business can't stay in business forever if it keeps losing money.
And I think you'll soon find that consoles are quite a bit cheaper. PC gaming is a never ending upgrade treadmill. Some new game coming out may require a better graphics card, and darn if that doesn't mean you need a new power supply. Then maybe you need a faster CPU, which in turn requires a new motherboard. Maybe the new motherboard doesn't support your old DDR2 RAM, only DDR3, so now you have to get all new RAM. Sooner or later you're going to run out of HDD space, so there's another expense.
Consoles are great. I buy one, and every game with the logo of that console on it is guaranteed to work. I just pop the disc in and go. No marathon install sessions, there may be some patching marathons since consoles have picked up that nasty habit from PC gaming, but I never have to worry about whether or not my video card is up to the task, or if I have enough RAM. One console, and every game for that console is guaranteed to work.
Granted Microsoft did have some pretty serious manufacturing issues with the Xbox early on, and they bungled the handling of that situation at pretty much every turn, but later models have been much improved. Even if you had to buy 2-3 360s at the original retail price over the 5 year time period since it has been available (maybe a bit less in your region), you'd probably still come out ahead financially compared to PC gaming.
Hi,
I have owned my xbox 360 since it first came out. Here is why they are a waste of time.
I got the Red Right Of Death after I purchased it, just after the one year warranty expired. I had to pay to get it repaired, which is cool, and it was fixed. But it was a huge inconvenience and a waste of time however I got over it.
I then began to get into xbox live. I had to set up a hotmail account and go through the long process of updating my console. I then realized, I had to actually pay for the xbox live service on top of my internet fee's. Why? If you already pay for internet then why should you pay for a subscription? However I payed for that as-well, and had to deal with constant laggy game servers, and my xbox saying that the NAT is set to moderate, and I could not join some games.
I was beginning to get irritated by the nagging inconveniences. When gears of war two came out, the readily put the DVD into the console. After I did that and played the came for an hour the laser burned the disc and I can no longer use it.
A month after that occurred Microsoft in New Zealand brought out this fantastic new update. It prevented anyone under the age of 18 download ANYTHING from the xbox live market place, YESS, even the G rates stuff. I am 17 and cannot download G rated games. I rang Microsoft and they confirmed this. In order for me to play live and download stuff, i will have to set up a new hotmail address and new gamertag, hence loosing all my game data.
How fantastic.
The console itself is garbage. Its noisy and slow.
Live is a profit making scam, as it is very slow, even though I have unlimited download speed and bandwith,
you have to pay for the subscription and expensive accessories to get the 'most' out of it.
Hence why I turned to PC gaming. Cheaper, hassle free if you know what your doing, and better performance.
Theres my rant,
cheers guys!

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic