can't do much about price, but reliability, I've had my 996 for 2yrs now and not a clitch.
If you look through the history/FAQ's etc, you will see that on the whole the Ducati is now a very reliable machine, the early 916 models etc used to have problems with eletrics etc, but thats back in the 90's, certainly not now.
Just look after them, service them when required and you will have little if any problems.
Maybe worth posting in the general section if you want more feedback/convincing etc - maybe title it 'thinking of buying a 998FE or maybe Ducati' and see what response you get back - not that we are biased towards Ducati's of course !!!