From personal experience, the Bamboo line of tablets have always doing me well.
My first tablet was an older Wacom Intuos tablet, I honestly can't remember which one but it was $200-something
and while it worked well, didn't last me longer than a year before it pooped out.

After that I had two incarnations of the Bamboo Pen tablet, which I honestly just got for their affordability.
The first one lasted me 2 or so years, and I've had my current one for maybe four years? My only criticism
is that the nibs wear down pretty quickly...but I also press down hella hard so that could easily be my fault |D

Anyway, if you're already having issues with a bamboo you may not want to go for another one, but I'm just
saying that from my experience with a more expensive Intuos and then the cheapest Bamboos on the market,
the Bamboos have been much better for me.

My first tablet was a Graphire tablet... And it lasted I think. 10 or so years? I've been having troubles every since.
My first Intuos lasted about four or five years, and the only problem I ever had with it, was that I wore the fuck out of the pen, and then it literally broke. lol

I would have gotten another Intuos at the time, but I didn't have near enough money. And I almost got one of the cheaper Bamboos at the time, but... I'm picky and like my tablet pens to have the eraser side. It's too confusing for me to have to keep selecting the eraser tool and then whatever pen/pencil/paint tool I was using before. lulz

I do admit that I murdered my nibs on my Intuos. But not on this Bamboo.

I do know that a lot of people swear by Bamboo tablets though. So I'll toss the idea around in my brain.

The one thing I hate about the Bamboo Create is the touch function, and what an ass it is to turn off sometimes. Mashing the "off/on" switch for it just to recognize my input is ridiculous. lulz. I don't remember having such issues with the Intuos, even though I'm pretty sure it had a touch function as well. But then, I didn't trip the touch function on it as easy as I do this Bamboo create. Better placed buttons or something. =__=;

I think everyone's different. Its like buying a TV. They all do the same thing but people have better experiences with different brands and what not. I'm definitely the type of person that prefers a simpler device hahaha. The Bamboo Pen is basically just a tablet that does nothing but its purpose, and the pen has two buttons you can set to things, but I don't use them anyway lol. But I can also recognize the need for the eraser tip (I enjoye it when my intuos had that!) and other useful tools.

I guess I'd just suggest looking up some reviews, considering your options, and then deciding what you can afford? I guess my only point is that the more expensive a device is, the more you're investing in a product that can fail or poop out on you just as easily as something half the price lol. Tablets are temperamental as friggle

Both myself and my partner  AzraelAmarose use Huion tablets (580 models) and they work just as well as the Intuos 3 we had before at a fraction of the price. I'm not really into the whole Wacom being the only valid option thing, especially when, for $100, both my partner and I got tablets with 2048 levels of pressure (double that of Bamboo, if I remember right) and they work amazing, come with extra nibs, etc. The only difference is that the pen has a battery. Woooopdedoo. You can buy (for like... $20) a rechargeable pen that works with these so you don't have to buy replacements.

Oh, and when I DID have issues setting my tablet up (in Linux (Ubuntu 14.04) NOT Windows - Windows and Mac are a breeze), they have a SKYPE account where you can talk to someone in person about your issue, and they made sure that they worked out what was wrong all the way to the end. The chick that helped me even got me experimental in-house only drivers to make sure it worked for me. For free. And they were super nice.

All in all, I'd never go back to Wacom. Ever. I'm a Huion homo all the way now.