I'm clearly biased towards Microsoft, but before I came here, I did at times subscribe to the "bumbling idiots" stereotype of Microsoft employees. I'd see stuff that came out of Redmond and scream in my head "What were they thinking?!?" Or more often I'd think of all these great ideas that they could add to their products to make them even better (new Zune features, new Live maps features, new Office features etc.)
It's true that there are people here who make stupid decisions for stupid reasons. It happens everywhere. But overall, I'm in awe of the people that work here. Do you have a good idea for product X? I guarantee you that someone thought of it already and they have been working on it and fighting to get it into the next release. All the teams around here spend time reading public forums, talking to customers, and figuring out what you really want or even what you don't know you want yet.
Microsoft employees love tech as much (or probably more) than you do. We're all geeks. These people have incredible ideas for their products, and there are some crazy internal projects floating around.
This all became clear to me when I started jumping on some internal mailing lists (Zune, XBox, Windows Mobile, etc.) The internal discussion lists are just as rough or even more raw then the ones you read on the web. We want out products to be the best and everyone is willing to help by offering their (optionally constructive) criticism. People don't pull punches on the internal lists when they think a feature stinks. But what really opened my eyes was when people from that product team would respond with a completely logical explanation of why they had to do it that way and how much better it's going to be in the next release.
I'd recommend keeping an eye on Channel9 and On10. They are both sites that interview regular Microsoft employees to see what they are working on. Granted they're a bit limited in what they can say to the public, but they do help to convey some of the enthusiasm and energy that exists around here.
Be patient. If your favorite Microsoft product doesn't support your favorite feature, it's coming. I promise.
PS. In case you don't get the Kool-Aid reference...