A quick note is that all your Itunes content will require conversion for use on a windows phone. Windows 8 phones don't support content (media, movies & music) that has DRM - the digital rights management stuffs that says you legally brought, downloaded & own this music/movie etc. CD's you've ripped on your PC should be okay - but anything you've brought or downloaded digitally off the Itunes store (or other places like Amazon, Audible, Sony etc) will require conversion.
The conversion process could be quite annoying, involved and lengthy- depending on how much music & movies you want available on your phone. You also will probably need to keep all the original files so they still work with Itunes and any other apple devices (old iphones make great ipods) So you need double the hard drive space used on your PC.
In general, the problems you described are physical defects with the phone. Perhaps you might look into a store that will offer you a guarantee on your phone - eg 30 days or 90 days free exchange on a problematic phone or something similar. I'm Australian but we have stores who offer 30 day exchange/refunds on all sales. A select few offer 90 days exchange and most have extended warranties with guarantees on times to repair products etc.
If your switching to a nokia branded phone, I can usually recommend them for build quality. Windows phone software has not sold well anywhere in the world but using the phone as a phone & media player isn't a bad experience. It can be a hassle to get your media library ready to work with the phone - you can't just drop it all into Itunes & let Itunes convert it all over night. You have to do everything yourself. There are a lot less apps as well - so you will have access to twitter apps etc - but you get a lot less of the apps designed for entertainment. So how you use your phone plays a big part. If you play a whatever the current, popular game is (eg angry birds) occasionally, enjoy music & the occasional show or movie on your phone - windows 8 is a good choice. If you buy everything off Itunes, own an Ipod & occasionally purchase stuff on your PS3, like to play smaller known games (I like to play a few specific board games on my iphone) and use odd apps most people don't know about - you will probably find a windows 8 phone constantly annoying & never has the right apps to buy.
Using the windows phone itself isn't a bad thing - though some people have found them to be quite clumsy. Trying a handset in store for 15 minutes might give you a better perspective on whether the design suits you or not though. Putting a demo phone through a 15 minute workout of web browsing, checking out the email app, taking a photo & trying to send it to something/someone, looking in the app store for specific apps & fiddling with a few settings should give you a feel for the phone's experience. Most people try a phone out for no more than a minute & don't really get a feel for it's differences. 10-15 minutes gives you a very different perspective without taking up too much time.
Good luck trying to choose.
