Build quality on PS3 is fine, sounds like you were just unlucky. The only relatively large scale problems with PS3 were the Yellow light of death on very early model fat PS3s
Still have 2 fat SP3s running fine in my house
One 60GB launch model
One 80GB model from 2008
YLoD was what killed my 40GB bought in 2008, but after almost five years of near-daily use (it was my DVD/BD/media player too) I could forgive that, got a second-hand 320GB Slim to replace it.