This subject isn't fair.  Sharepoint doesn't crash all the time.  Its just that I've been using it for going on two years now, and I never could relax and be confident in it due to occasional issues with webparts, WSS, Digital Dashboard disappearing acts, and “legacy” SPS system VBS behaviors.  We've built our company intranet around SPS as soon as it was released and haven't looked back.  Much. 

Anyway, today we encountered WSS.MDB corruption and Sharepoint would not load.  It was pretty much dead in the water.  Fortunately, my best-darn-network-guys-in-the-whole-world were quickly all over it and the three of us attacked the problem from various flanks, deciding to go with ESEUTIL.EXE utility in the SPS Shared System files \bin directory.   And it actually did the trick and the WSS.MDB was repaired. 

It sucked being down, of course, but stuff happens, and you have to always appreciate the availability of MS package-installed utilities in case you ever need them.