Agreed. With my Oregon 650, Garmin needed about 20 firmware upgrades to get a usable & stable device. It took 3 years of development to reach this state. As things stand, I would have a hard time recommending buying Garmin brand new GPS models. Let it settle for at least a year before thinking about getting one.
On the other hand, pretty much every hardware manufacturer only designs bad and buggy software / firmware to use their device. I am thinking about X-Rite, Sony et al. Could they not hire competent people or outsource this job to a different company if this is not their core business?
Cheers,
Fabien