Right click on the device and find the PCI or USB IDs to find out what piece of hardware it is. I don't have a Win7 machine here but it's on the "Details" tab when you open the device in Device Manager in XP.

As for your Apple rant - well yes that's why you pay a premium. Most people are happy to deal with such minor minor annoyances and get something with the same performance but cheaper and more customisable. Wait, why are you running Windows? Why not use a Mac if they are so much better?

Perhaps this is another area of technology you can fix?