Re: We should use neither
"Frankly, the Pi when you start pushing it beyond prototyping proves to be too unreliable, especially if used for more than one application."
I find the RPi to be EXTREMELY useful (and highly reliable) for device control types of applications. Where do you get off saying it's unreliable? Maybe you're just not using it for the right purpose.
RPi is NOT a desktop computer. OK the newer ones run about as fast as a laptop purchased before 2005, but they were pretty useful BACK THEN, weren't they? I don't expect an RPi to be doing disk-intensive applications (SD card - duh) or use it to power USB devices that draw a lot of amperage. Personally, I think you're trying to extract 3Ghz x64 desktop capabilities out of a ~1Ghz ARM processor and it disappoints. Well, 'duh' again.
what RPi _IS_ though, would be a USB-capable computer that can run an OS like Linux, talk to your networks, do WiFi, do bluetooth, and [the REAL important part] has a boatload of GPIO PINS that you can do "whatever" with.
Here's a nice example of an industrial device I designed for a customer, using an RPi:
Bed of Nails Device
THIS is what the RPi is good at doing: controlling things and sensing stuff and doing input/output with custom hardware that's tailored to the environment the device is intended to work under.
and, if it goes bad, you can replace it (for cheap), and if the SD card goes bad, you can just re-image it from a backup. Personally, I think THAT makes it VERY reliable!
(FYI it's running Raspbian)