My vote is IBM(Lenovo).  Tons of community support, very good to excellent
hardware support, very good documentation and support from Lenovo.  Replaced
my Toughbook with a Thinkpad (shh...don't tell Dell, I like my continued
stream of paychecks), and haven't regretted it one bit.  Stands up to a hell
of a lot of abuse.

As far as the M$ tax, like others have said, it's extremely difficult to get
away from it now.  I figured paying a few extra bucks was just part of
getting a top-notch box, as well as the support from Lenovo.

eric