I don't find modern gaming so buggy than it was years ago but that's probably because I to buy games at least 1 year if not more after their release and often take time to wander official forums to be informed about the main unbalanced aspects and bugs before considering purchase. Example : Stalker Shadow of Chernobly, total buggy mess at release, just bough it 3 years later, patched, installed Stalker Complete mod and enjoyed without much frustrations and almost no crashes.

I think that today people tends to let nostalgia blinding their judgement or just aren't patient enough. If we had all to wait for a fixed version before buying on release publishers and developers would adapt, but instead a majority of people rush and open their wallet ready to pay full price for betas.

I have few problems with bugs myself as I tend to buy games one or two years after their release, and use as much patch as possible.

Only exception WAS Paradox Interactive, until the unfamous HoI3 release, and are indies. And also TellTaleGames due to their outstanding support.

That's it, paradox has changed a lot after the release of Europe Universalis III, and became worst with HOI3... hopefully they let the fans do their own game out of the engines now.

It sounds like things turned out for the best. You don't want your hobbies and your job to overlap too much anyway.