I'm a big glock fan and a NRA instructor. I started out hating the things, having grown up shooting 1911's. A friend of my fathers made me shoot his and I got hooked.
I've yet to see a glock malfunction without reloads being involved. I have however, had two of my glocks have parts wear down and break during shooting (after roughly 10-15K rounds), only to have the guns continue running until the magazine was empty.
I actually steer beginners towards glocks AND proper training. The reason being that the guns are simple, and don't have any extra external controls. Most AD/ND's written up in newspapers have the phrase "I thought the safety was on" or "I thought the gun was unloaded" in them somewhere.
Proper gun handling skills DO NOT make the assumption that the mechanical safety of a firearm will stop it from shooting, as well as the assumption that the safety lets you point the gun wherever the hell you want. If a mechanical safety stops a person from discharging a firearm unintentionally, that person needs actual training or to not have a firearm in the first place.
The biggest point of decision between the top handguns out there today (glock, sig, H&K, XD's, various 1911's, etc), isn't what the "experts" online or in the gun shop say, but what fits best in your hands.