Regarding the Italian vs. Chinese made boards, here's my 2 cents.
I currently have two boards, a Uno bought from a reputable supplier and a mega bought off ebay and shipped from China. Both say "Made in Italy".
The reputable source Uno is rock solid, and has clean graphcs. The china sourced Mega was dirty on arrival, and the graphics were "fuzzy" like a photocopy of an original, which I suspect is close to what it is. Further, the Mega hangs about 10% of the time I send a program to it. After a couple days running a program, the Chinese sourced LCD connected to the mega is corrupt, showing characters not in the program.
All that said, I can't say anything definitive about the mega just voice suspicions. I have no experience with any other mega, so I don't know personally if they are less stable than the Unos. Further, I don't know that the Chinese sourced I2C display is causing the corruption issue.
I can only suspect the china sourced mega is causing problems. If all you want to do is tinker, stability is likely not an issue. However, if you want your project to run stable for weeks, then reducing suspicion might be worth a few bucks. After reading this thread, I think I'll stick with reliable sources, to support them and eliminate unknowns. It's worth the few bucks.