I never in my life owned AMD. The only time I remember AMD actually creating something that could match Intel, was around 2005, where it was a big stir with the high quality CPU AMD released, which if I remember well it was called Althlon or FX (it has been a long time).
The only reason I even looked into AMD, is because when I visited the forums of overclock net, which I usually go for some opinions, in the Intel CPU section that I asked about 7600, I got 3 answers. I was suggested to look into 6700 or maybe7700, keeping in mind that they get hot, and all three said to at least first wait for Ryzen.
Good reputation is something that takes more than just 1 good CPU. Trust is probably something even harder to get. But I always do trust users and I do not mean the ones getting all hyped. Results that come from users are most of the time not biased and external sources can't affect them, which is why I like forums. If anything I know Ryzen is going to get criticized very strictly, cause as it seems a lot of Intel users that wanted to jump from 4 cores to 8 cores, have got them.
I have low expectations from Intel for sure, mostly because 6th to 7th get was supposed to be a 15% jump in performance, with the best current example 6700K->7700K having an 8% better performance when on stock clocks and almost 0% when OCed on air with a good cooler. 8th generation is supposed to be another 15% up from the 7th. Sadly it seems at least Kaby runs extra hot.
I never have been disappointed by Intel before, but a bad experience way in the past with NVidia, taught me it is better to not jump before looking.