I work as tech support for my university. I am also a PC gamer. While I did run the gamut against Fallout 3, it was fixed rather quickly with a simple reinstall, and a patch from the developer.
My personal experience is that it boggles my mind how many people seem to have problems with their computers. How people get viruses used to be one of my top offenders. Neither of my Windows machines have had more than 1 problem in their life on my desk. My home-built PC picked up a virus once while I was helping a friend troubleshoot his computer. It was my own mistake, and I knew better than to do what I was doing, but knee-jerk reactions are bane in computing, and I had to spend 10 minutes of my life dealing with the problem. The other was because of buggy, mandated university software that was neither properly tested or properly supported. When I solved the problem, it gave me a good 6 months of 'do whatever' job security.
So when I hear about the latest problem that someone is having with a machine, I can't help but wonder what the masses are doing wrong. It's one of the reasons I generally try to AVOID talking about computer problems with people. If I've had problems with DRM, it was that I entered the CD key wrong. Software problems could be attributed to my former actions of piracy, and the fact that cracking games sometimes breaks stuff.
I could never go back to console gaming. I like being close to the screen so I can see stuff better. Console gaming just... it's too locked down, and, after mastering my many-button keyboard, just seems clunky and analog.
That said, your point about too many options is heard, internalized, and repeated. As much as I hate Apple's insistence on using only THEIR hardware with their devices... as far as preventing incompatibility issues, they did it right. If you have one platform, with one compiler, on one configuration, it is so much easier to deal with development and debugging, and once you're done, it will work all the time, every time.
Of course, if PC gaming was standardized like that, I think it would lose its identity as a separate platform. And I rather like being a part of the 'PC gaming master race.'