I have bought other drives other than the standard mac drives and they failed too. Luckily it's so easy to fix yourself. Three screws and you there. http://www.ifixit.com/cart/catalog/

I bought them from newegg.com for a fair price and have the history here:
#1 HITACHI Travelstar 7K100 HTS721010G9SA00 (0A25016) 100GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Notebook Hard Drive - OEM
#2 HITACHI Travelstar 5K160 HTS541616J9SA00 (0A28844) 160GB 5400 RPM Serial ATA150 Notebook Hard Drive - OEM

I don't think it's hitachi as much as it is the way macbooks use them. Of course there is a 1 year warrantee on the drives, but this happening so often is just silly. I had a titanium powerbook for 4 1/2 years and never experienced this.

One mistake I figured out that might help you... On my 12inch ibook I had thought the hard drive failed when really it was just my third party memory had failed. (Buying memory or hard drive upgrades from apple is ludicrous/stupid.) So when I switched out the memory it was good again. (Even though on the disk utility it had said hard drive error)

hope this helps maybe bring a case against apple. Other than this I love their products. Very good quality and well thought out. Mac help is normally very helpful, especially in person at mac stores, and I fully suggest them to everyone. Especially if they make music.