I feel your pain and sympathize with you.
Often when I talk to woodworkers about using SketchUp they tell me that they would make components of things that have multiples in the model such as the legs and aprons of a table. The top, on the other hand would be made into a group because there's only one top. That's fine, I guess. But in my work, there wouldn't be just one table top. The entire table model would get copied off to one side and an exploded view created from that copy. If the top needs to be edited after the exploded view and I had made it a group, I would have to either edit both copies or edit one and copy it to replace the other. Since I would make the top a component, I don't even have to think about it.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3651/5785139027_a35496db66_z.jpg
Yes, you can get snagged by the Make Unique but with a little practice it becomes second nature.
Of course there's also the old saying, "Don't draw anything twice." Components can be saved out into a library for future use so that makes them a "labor saving device."