Re: Rip it up and start again.
I think issues with reliability with VM depends heavily on which area you are in. In the nearly two decades I've been with VM (formerly NTL) at my current address I've only had issues with reliability on half a dozen occasions and at least one of those was down to water ingress on a damaged cable between my property and the cabinet. I would notice issues quickly too, as I've worked from home for that entire period.
At least for me, reliability with Virgin is nearly perfect including consistency in bandwidth, I'm never less than 5% under the advertised speeds and most of the time I'm getting 10% above the rated speed. This is far better than the stories I hear from others about other providers.
I recognise that this isn't true for everyone, but in general it's the consensus among those people I've spoken to who use Virgin.
Where Virgin fails consistently in my experience is customer support, which can vary between 'adequate' and 'terrible'. Thankfully due to the reliability I experience, I rarely need to interface with their support team.
By far my biggest complaint with Virgin Media is that the price seems to keep going up by leaps and bounds. It feels like they are squeezing their existing customers to fund introductory offers for their new clients and I'm not happy about it.
I'm currently looking to move somewhere more rural, when I do, I think I'm going to really miss Virgin Media. I can only hope that where I end up, they have really good community fibre.