The reason why we are often too eager to dismiss is because kindness takes effort. Empathy, and certainly sympathy, is hard work. We get lazy, we become exhausted and our reactions become snappy. Almost always the "dry your eyes" advice is inappropriate and insensitive. And it never really achieves its intended objective.
I'm not saying we should all participate in crying orgies whenever someone shows signs of weakness (though, as I've aged, I think that is better than showing a cold shoulder) or that we readily invest in "idiot compassion". What I'm saying is: we are all trapped in this existential reality together and we all need to show kindness with all forms of suffering. Being cruel to be kind as a philanthropic philosophy has never worked (for me).
Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo (RSA Animate on "Smile or Die" a talk by Barbara Ehrenreich)
It's just that sometimes a figurative slap is the right thing the sufferer needs to wake up from the suffering and realize there's no actual need to suffer like that.
It's all very personal and context dependent and, most importantly, it should never be done in anger.
In the end, the company has to decide where they put the bar for "good customer support", from "making at least 50% happy" up to "making 95% happy" but never "making 100% happy". And of course, the price paid should be in relation to this, which in Apple's case, it may not be (but to be fair - I hear a lot of good stories about Apple support as well, so this one event cannot determine whether Apple does support well).
Or to put it another way:
The cost to Apple's reputation of an angry blog post about ghosting problems on their flagship notebook is considerable.
On the other hand, the cost of simply swapping this fellows machine out would have been negligible.