I don’t actually think Bambu makes unreliable printers; to the contrary, they are excellent machines that, if anything, are much more reliable on the whole than Creality. But they’re kind of like sports cars, in that their target market is either people who want something fast and flashy and are willing to throw money at any problems to make them go away, or for technical types who want something they can take out on the track and don’t mind wrenching their own machines. The problem is that Bambu printers are marketed and touted as being great for beginners, and while they certainly make it easy to get into 3D printing for nontechnical people, I think most of them will end up ultimately being disappointed at either the lack of customization they allow or amount of time, effort, and money required to diagnose and fix them when something goes wrong.
BBL parts are not very expensive and their support is stellar. Of course if they go bankrupt we'll be high and dry.
Prior to my two A1s I spent more time, and more money in parts, mucking about with the printers, modifying and calibrating, tweaking Klipper than getting anything done.
It's not magic and faces the same limitations as all other 3D-priters but it's execution is top notch. I can't remember a single instance where I felt the need to change the printer settings in the slicer besides selecting one of the presets.
Our filament purchases went up by at aleast an order of magnitude and new members to our club get the hang of it really quick.y