I am currently on vacation in the Mediterranean and find a hybrid model to be the best of both worlds. We strictly use booking.com (we need to find a hotel at 6pm and check in at 7. Same thing the next day.Airbnb would never work.) Booking.com lists apartments too. I would imagine there's a huge overlap with airbnb properties. This way you're using the better company (they helped me out a bunch of times. And the listers are more inclined to behave on booking.com.) but staying in the same apartments with all the positives you listed. It's all self check in now too. I have yet to see any owner or manager.
This has always been my experience as well. And like I mentioned above, the people listing places on booking.com are much more likely to try to deal with you properly. I think on AirBNB the renters can even look at your prior reviews to judge how likely you are to give a positive review before they accept the reservation. And they can cancel at any time even after you've paid.
