Even Brother is dodgy, depending on the model. I have a low-midrange Brother B&W laser printer that worked great until one day it decided to stop accepting print jobs, both via network and USB… it just stalls at “processing” and never proceeds. Googling around it seems like people with various Brother models have seen this behavior.
It may also be just random failure of some components that were simply costed to be less than bulletproof on their "low to midrange" model. Or a software issue as suggested by another poster. No evidence of any sabotage was presented.
I once had a similar problem with a CUPS/gutenprint driver. If you are using CUPS, load the ppd from brother.
It could also have to do with the detail/complexity of your document. Intricate PDFs or high-dpi graphics can overwhelm low-midrange printers. (I once had a print job that took the printer half an hour to process.) On some printers you can even install additional RAM.
