Guide Updates (4/6/2014):
1. Links updated
2. End of life products removed or replaced
3. Intel 570 SSDs added to Section 8 recommendations
4. NVIDIA GTX Titan Black added to Section 5 recommendations
5. Antec High Current Platinum series PSUs added to Section 6 recommendations

Sorry for dropping off the map there for a month. Lots of news of future changes happened while I was gone, but it appears that the hardware landscape stayed fairly stable. Keep that in mind if you're planning to build a new box.

Unfortunately I didn't get to address the brand bias in the recommendations though :(.