PC vs Console: PC Gaming is Expensive Hassle but we love it

So Paul’s latest comparison between PC and console gaming has created quite the firestorm. His financial analysis shows that console gaming is, in fact, cheaper even if plenty of commenters take issue with his assumptions.
But an important piece is missing from his analysis, which swingsthe vote even more so toward the console side: PC gaming is a hugehassle. This can’t easily be measured in dollars (hence the reason it’sleft out of a financial analysis), but here’s my latest ridiculousexample:

I play Crysisand think it’s both the most beautiful game I’ve seen plus one of themost fun games I’ve played in the last couple years (well worth the $45).Having said that, it’s still a love/hate relationship. You see, likemany PC games, a patch was released a few months after the game wasreleased. I didn’t find out about it until weeks after its release, ofcourse, because no one told me. And I’m not actively browsing gamingsites daily in hopes for a patch release.
But it gets worse. I install the patch since it’s supposed to fixsome bugs and better optimize the gaming experience. It seems to do sountil about half way through the game. All of a sudden, it startstaking 5 minutes for any game saving (which you can do at anytime andwhich happens automatically at every checkpoint). The game becomeunplayable. Even not saving the game manually (just saving at theautomatic checkpoints), I was waiting more than playing.
So that got old really fast, and I started browsing online game forums for clues. I found two forumswith hundreds of gamers frustrated by this same issue. In fact, one ofthe forums is an official EA forum (publisher of the game) but hasstill seen no response by any moderators. After reading through thecomments, I did find a solution. Here’s how it works:
The issue I was experiencing apparently had something to do with thenew patch. The fix entails uninstalling the game, then reinstalling it,and finally downloading and using someone else’s saved gamesto pick up in the part of the game you left off. You can’t backup anduse your saved games, you see, because they’re corrupted. And, ofcourse, the most important part is that of NOT installing the patchthat the publisher recommends for “better performance,” ironically.
So there you have it. A few hours of my life wasted on somethingthat would have never happened with a console game. It’s 2008, whydon’t PC games download and install patches automatically (when theybecome available) from within the game? Why is it acceptable forpatches to break the game and the developer to simply ignore it?
At least this time I was able to find a solution to the problem. My previous gaming problem with Gears of War still has me with a $50 gaming paperweight. But I’ll say again what I said the first time around:
PC gaming is more fun for me. I enjoy being on the cutting(bleeding?) edge with the best possible graphics and games. I preferthe precision of the keyboard and mouse to the clunkiness of theconsole controller. But in terms of price and the “hassle” factor, it’sno wonder PC gaming has seen a decline in popularity recently. PCgaming is for fools, but I’m lovin’ it… when it works, that is.