The thing is, most of their stuff don't actually suck.

Take Windows Phone. It's a great OS. The only problem is that it came too late and had poor marketing (and was associated with the uncool Windows brand). Technically, it's awesome and in the same league as Android and iOS.

The same is true for Xbox, Windows 8, C#, SQL Server, ASP.NET MVC/API, Azure, etc.

Google or Apple would build the exact same products, and people would probably love them.

So no, I don't believe that Ballmer's love for Microsoft (especially recently) was unjustified. He simply failed to account for the negative popular perception of Microsoft and its brands.