The maximum warranty period is 3 years, though obviously there are lots of ways to still hand yourself an expensive repair (spill soda on the keyboard, that kind of thing).
Now, to be fair, I was a first-gen MacBook owner, and suffered from the issue with the magnetic latch cracking the topcase plastic and the plastic itself getting stained. I'm pretty sure I had that topcase replaced at least four or five times over the course of the computer's life, several of them out of the Apple Care period. That was a while ago, but at least back then, Apple were good about taking care of people once they'd come around to acknowledging a flaw.
