I don't see why you would talk about defective units, my first bionic had the whine and I called Verizon and had a new one shipped the next day... no more whine.
The Bionic is an awesome phone there's just some strange groupie hipster wave of people that seem to be obsessed with putting down this phone. I came from a droid x and am thoroughly impressed. The screen is completely opinion based, tell me what other phone you can have heavy usage and still get only 15-20% battery used on the screen? Not to mention the daytime viewing is great on this phone, yes I notice the odd pixelation sometimes but its not like it makes text harder to read or anything to I got used to it pretty quick.
There's issues with every new phone at launch In the history of android I have never seen a single launch with 0 issues and I've followed a TON of launches, you're being silly if you expect that.
If I remember correctly the time between when cv had cm booting on the x to the the time he had it fairly stable was only about a month I don't see why you think the bionic will be such a monumental difference outside of the lte drivers.