Cisco is now competing with companies that are putting out cheaper switches so the price could be something that could be improved upon. However, if you want the best in the industry then you need to pay for it. Cisco could also open the API up to work closely with other systems.
We have been using Cisco Ethernet Switches for eighteen years. We only deal with Cisco switches.
It is much easier and faster to get to the Cisco support, which is good. Secondly, Cisco is the world leader in these systems. The expertise they have is very good compared to others. We can trust Cisco from a technical perspective. For example, if you are buying a car you would not buy from a company that will not give you support. Also, you wouldn't buy a car from a company that is not proven in the industry. These are two things that should be taken into consideration while you are looking at any product. Then you should get into technical features.
Cisco has very good material available on their website to read and to do yourself. This makes the initial setup of these switches very easy.
We handle all of the setup ourselves.
I highly recommend Cisco Ethernet Switches if you have the budget for it. I would rate Cisco switches at a ten on a scale of ten.
In my experience, the cisco devices do handle extremes quite well, I've worked with millitary deployable kit thats dropped off trucks or out of aircraft, or in mine sites with unstable power and numerous other nasties. The biggest issue with these kinds of environments is dust and extreme temperatures, or in the outback the bull dust, being sucked through the machines, not an issue until moisture is also incurred. All vendor network devices will suffer under those forms of conditions, but the Cisco kit still seems to keep ticking even with that sort of harsh treatment. Can't say what the Cisco RMA returns engineers would think on opening up a returned device thats full of bulldust though, I'd assume that might void the warranty :-).