Does anyone else believe in that whole "Don't stand your 360 upright or it will break" stuff? It just reminded me after looking at Weclock's picture. I don't know how is orientation would affect its reliability (regardless of the rrod).

No! Because we all know that PC parts are replaceable and easier to get then entire consoles. And even though lots of PCs die everyday, we all know that the average PC is more reliable to last a few more years than a current generation console.

I believe in it whole-heartedly, I think I read somewhere a while back about that sort of thing and how it can reduce the lifespan of the console but that was in the PS2 days so who knows? I can say though personal experience would argue the contrary as I recently got the rrod (had it less than a year - damn MS!) and never played a game or movie with it upright

Really? I've had an original version PS2 that has lasted far longer than my previous PC. And the 'current' generation of consoles is still far too young to really make an overall claim that PCs last longer in terms of years. The only difference to me, is that very few people complain on a forum when their PC fails. They simply stump up more cash to fix it. Which is little different to contacting a support line to arrange for your console to be replaced.

Presumably the optical drive on your PC won't be sideways though, whereas the disc is actually perpendicular to the force of gravity when a console is stood upright which could theoretically damage something (well theoretically)

Nintendo consoles are the exception to this. Haven't you seen the pictures of the Gameboy that took a bullet and still played? Or the one that was melted in the fire and still turned on? Have you ever heard of many people having a bad Wii? I have heard of the power adapters being bad, but the console still works once you get a new adapter.

PC optical drives work fine on their side. That's why they have the little edges that flip out on the disc tray.

i wanted to buy a 360 on woot when they were $170 but i was too scared of a refurb of a product known to fail

Many things are known to fail or is really dodgy that people take for granted. For example, tax forms, subway trains, tasers, and Timex watches from the 70s. You should have bought it, dude.

I just thought it was funny that my friends with PS3s were the ones having problems, when my 3 friends that own a 360 have had no problem with them.

I honestly don't agree with the too young claims. Because that's exactly what the problem is: They're too young to be dieing out already. And depending on the guarantee you can also call support for PC parts replacements, it's a matter of how much hassle you really want to have, but you have options. Some years ago, the all onboard PCs that were all over the market were really bad and unrelliable.
But congrats on keeping your PS2 in one piece. As far as I remember pirate games were what really killed PS2 hardware over the years, not genuine use. But I could be wrong.
@barleyguy:
Hey, I didn't see those gameboy stuff. I belive I've heard about wii problems in the past (besides the classic "Oh my God I just tossed my controller into my TV screen!"), but honestly I can't really be sure about what it was. Besides, the Wii really is a last generation hardware.

But congrats on keeping your PS2 in one piece.
I don't think it's that hard to keep one going. I also have an original PS2 (not sure which series though, I bought it a few days after the first price drop in Japan, which was sometime in 2001). And up until I replaced it with a PS3 a couple of years ago, it was in perfect condition, complete with internal harddrive and network adapter thingy (which I don't even need except for the fact that you couldn't install the harddrive without it).
It's looking a little rough around the edges these days though as I put it in the living room for the children to use as a DVD player.

Sounds sort of similar to the problem I had, turned out my graphics hardware had screwed up. It wasn't actually a RROD, I've never seen the lights in person but it was enough to kill it and I had to send it back. Took a few phone calls to diagnose the problem and sort out a remedy but I ended up sending it back, they said it would take up to 8 weeks and it took just over 2. They also threw in a month free live gold as an apology, sure its basically worthless to them but its still a paid product and they didn't have to do it so I was impressed by that.
As I see it you have 2 major options, you could arrange a repair and wait however long or you could buy a 360 arcade, get the most modern revision of the hardware which is supposed to be cooler and quieter and swap the HDD over onto it.
OR you could do both, then you could have a spare 360 as a dedicated video streaming machine (you might have to grab a cheap 20gb hdd from somewhere for netflix, I assume it caches but I'm not sure how it works since apparently australians don't need a service like it) and another one to actually game on.

I think the built in 512mb on the arcades is a bad enough dude to handle it.

Could be worth a shot then, I'd forgotten they have that much flash in them now