As far as people bad mouthing the Beretta M9 I have always liked the pistol if you know its limitations. I once saw a custom M9 with a screw in barrel bushing. It was done for maximum accuracy in competition. Do you really need that kind of accuracy in a defense gun? I do not think so. My Italian and American Beretta's give me all the accuracy I need.
It is true some Military M9's blew up because of a steady diet of Military Plus P Plus loads. Beretta later put a "hump" in the slide rails and put in an oversize hammer pin to deflect any sharpnel if the slide blew up from too many hot loads. The average guy would never put that many loads through his gun, especially the super expensive Plus P Plus loads.
The Beretta M9 was developed off of the Walther P38 locking system which had the same problem of cracked slides as the slide is very thin like the Beretta's. I once had an oddball French P38 (P1)) police post war aluminum frame gun that had the slide rails built up at the factory. Whether this was a factory experimental or a permanent modification I was never able to find out. I wish now I had never sold it because of its rarity.
Both of my Beretta 9x19 guns have been extremely reliable and the extra sighting radius is an advantage when shooting it. Trigger pulls are decent. Sights are visible.
In my humble opinion when the M9 was replaced by the Military the H&K P30s and P30sk should have been chosen as the new military handguns as they are perhaps one of the safest pistols ever designed giving you the choice of carrying them hammer down with safety on or off, hammer cocked with safety on and of course they have a decocker as well. Their accuracy and reliability are legendary. The only criticism is that they do have a plasticky frame but I have seen some plastic pistols survive a fall onto cement better than aluminum frame guns which often go snap, crackle, and pop when they hit concrete.
Other brands of aluminum framed guns to name just a few, have been known to crack early in life from recoil such as the Walther P88 (holy grail of the Walther 9x19's), the S&W 39, Post War aluminum frame P38 (P1) the Colt .45 acp Commander, and the modern Polish P98 9x19 (almost unknown here in the U.S. and my P98 frame did indeed crack). It was an ex- Polish Prison guard pistol and probably had a lot of rounds fired out of it.
I might note that late in the final production of the last of the aluminum frame P38's had a hexagonal steel pin installed crossways through the frame to absorb the recoil of the slide and this new modification was carried over into the P4 Walther and P5 Walther police pistols. The P5 had many other modifications too numerous to mention here. Its one of my favorite "safe queens" as I do not carry it because of its high value, low capacity, and very thick slide. I think if Walther had made the P5 as a high capacity pistol it would have lasted years longer in the marketplace. The shooting world lost a great handgun when the P5 was discontinued. It was way more accurate and reliable than the P1 and P4 Walthers. Never pass one up at a decent price (if there is such a thing these days).