I agree MSI was "lost" back in P8P67 days failing to maintain an identify for themselves in any way. However starting with Z77 they attacked the middle market with some very aggressively designed products which have been very successful. Listening to your experience I am reminded of a colleague who bought 2 dozen 7200.11 Seagate drives cause he "got a deal" ....They had a firmware problem and he was stuck w/ 24 of them.....he won't use Seagate to this day which means his clients never benefited from last year's best drive (Bararcuda XT), this year's current standout (7200.14) and never used the Momentus XT ....all class leading units. I bought well over 30 7200.10s and 7200.12's never had a problem..... we just fell on opposite sides of the "hardware lottery".
The Rock passed MSI in a period of recession when MSI was without direction and Asrock did so by offering the cheapest alternative in almost every niche. While every other manufacturer offered a 3 year warranty on their boards, Asrock stuck at just 1 and 2 years and their users on a budget were willing to risk it. It doesn't have to be good when it's cheap as Walmart continues to show us. I credit Asrock with upping their warranty and improving their component selection but I still have a MoBo or 2 around here that I save to show people what leaking and bulged caps look like. The eban counters knew well waht they were doing w/ those warrantees.
I used Asus almost exclusively (few gigabytes) from late 1990s to recent years. I never felt comfortable with MSI back then especially after they "cheated" with the MSI 660 PEs. I only started using them for MoBo's since Z77 because of the great reviews and peeps coming in and repeatedly asking for them. Only with the release of the 7xx series did i start using them for GFXcards and for one simple reason.....how do I convince a user to select a factory overclocked Asus card for $410 @ 1058 MHz when the MSI is $400 and is clocked at 1137 Mhz.....it's simply not competitive
Same thing with the MoBo. I want a full size board w/ MIL spec components w/ Asus I gotta spring for $240... that comes at $140 w/ MSI. The feature set between the Z87-A and the G45 continues the trend.....G45 has extra PCIE slot, better audio, MIL spec components, extra SPDIF, Killer ethernet, OC Genie, gold plated game ports, .... again, you just get more.
Im not discounting your experience with MSI, I'm just saying I have not experienced same, I don't know anyone else who has experienced same and when I go looking I can't find anyone who has had more than anecdotal one time experiences with their Z87 and 87 mobos. I can't judge them for their pre-Z87 era products as I have no experience with same. A company's performance has to be viewed in a time context. If I judged Asus Vid cards by the performance of the 7xx series, id never have owned one. If I judged them by the performance of the 6xx series, id never buy anything else.
Id much rather do a Asus MoBo Build as I much prefer their BIOS .... but like the current vid cards, in the $140-$200 price category, they just don't compete very well with the competition. Asus Hero, Asus Maximus VI Formula, Asus Sabertooth I'll take in a heartbeat .... Maximus Extreme, and Z87-A just don't measure up. Again, I'm not discounting your experience, but each way I turn I'm not finding anyone who has had similar run of experiences on Z77 and Z87 boards.