Wow, I normaly don't chime in to these kind of threads, but I gotta chime in here.
I have been a automotive professional for 15 years. I started by being a oil changer. I have been a mechanic, service writer, and store manager. Needless to say I have done alot in the business. One thing I always have liked to do is go in back and change oil. I have also cut apart hundreds of oil filters in my day just to see what the different brands look like on the inside. In my opinion, fram is a bit cheaper than some of the high end filters listed here. On the same note purolator has a cheap line of filters and so does wix. Guess what guys, they all have a cheap line! Hastings? Yup they have a cheap line. The only differance is fram has the stones to put the name fram on their cheap line.
Moving on, I have taken off many thousand fram oil filters and you know what? The cars keep on going. I have seen engines fail with all kinds of brands of filters. Do I use them, not if I have a choice, but the same goes for any other brand, it depends on the line of the filter. I just had a engine in a newly purchased car fail, with a purolator filter in it. Its not very often your engine is gonna fail because of a oil filter if you service your vehicle regularly. To put out a oil filter for sale the companies have to meet certain requirments. If fram didn't meet those it wouldnt be on the shelf.