A couple of things.
I enjoy the greek system at MY campus. I cannont vouch for any other campus. But I will say that odds are that they are plenty of sweet fraternities and fraternity guys out there. That being said, I am sure there are a lot of really weak fraternities and fraternity guys out there.
A big issue is a predetermined image. A lot of the responses I get when i mention "my fraternity" is "ohhhhh...you're in a frat....".
Now these may have been people I have known a long time, or not. But I usually have some success turning thier opinions around with showing them around etc.
A big problem is that when you introduce someone to fraternity life, or they come to a fraternity party, they have trouble seperating the stuff they see from a "frat party" then from a normal "house party". I've seen a lot of crazy shit at random house parties. A lot of the craziest things you see at fraternity partys are randoms that show and and say "hey its a frat party, I can be disgusting."
As for paying for friends, I don't pay for a single one. I wasn't in school last year and nothing changed. Also, every cent I pay each year I get back in tickets to parties, free booze, free tickets to campus events, 2 formal banquet dinners, a lot of expertise in my faculty, a TON of summer job oppurtunities, offers for the sweetest volunteering positions and one of the biggest ways I get my money back: free sports (which is really expensive to play at my university ie 100+ bucks for intramural hockey plus I play on two soccer teams, and do many one time events).
So try not to generalize and judge everything before you check it out with an unbias opinion. It may totally not be for you, and thats fine, as long as you didn't already have that idea coming in.
In the end of anything, all you're left with is your experiences. And as a fraternity whether they are good or bad, you learn from all of them, and hopefully more will be good than bad.