Sorry you had poor experience.
My experience is the same as Sixty Fiver.
I don't want to ride a crappy bike for five months of the year, and I don't want a crappy bike to crap out on me in the middle of a blizzard. My primary commuter is the same bike, all 52 weeks. This also means I don't have to adjust to a different bike at the same time as I'm adjusting to different conditions.
My Trek Portland was $1,700 sticker price, now has a helluva lot more in accessories ($800 in wheels alone, due to the dynamo hub, not shown in the pics below) and we're entering our fifth winter. It still looks new, and component wear has been limited to chains (twice a year), cassettes (every other year), the middle chainring (four years) and brake pads (every spring). Yeah, despite the studs, I manage to fall with it once a year on average. Biggest damage was ripped bar tape.
I commute every workday on it,
and run all my errands with it. Sometimes I even have to dig out a parking spot at the bank or the store.
(Pics from two different winters. Tried different fenders this particular year. Went back to SKS since then.)