Nothing wrong with refurbished if you save a fair portion of the purchase price, but for the amount of savings on Mac's it's not worth it IMHO. Buying new you know everything is factory direct, ease of mind is there. Buying refurbished and you always take that slight chance, so I wouldn't bother. Give me 20% to 25% off and I'd give it a try, but not for 5% off or some low ball number like that.
I take more of a chance with less expensive items, I get into the high priced products and I wish to get the best chance for success, and limit obtaining something which may have had an intermittant problem that somehow passed quality control a second time.