Ah, Aaron beat me to some of the points! ^^. I agree with Nick that wheels are almost invariably the lowest quality component specced on mass-produced bikes in the budget price ranges. It makes sense that budget buyers are less discerning about hubs, rims, spokes, and wheel build quality than for example the frame, drivetrain, or cockpit.
I build all my own wheels because I like having total control over what goes into the build. I use established brand-name hubs (Industry Nine, Hope, Chris King, DT Swiss, etc. and avoid Novatec/Powerway and their many knock-off re-branded brethren). You want a hub that won’t have busted pawls in a thousand miles and shot bearings. Hubs with made-in-Japan (not Taiwan or china) steel bearings are most reliable, I have even replaced with ceramic bearings in some of my hubs. For rims, if you’re using alloy, you want torsional stiffness so going lighter weight isn’t going to help in the long run, I’ve had great luck with Stans rims, but DT Swiss Alloy rims are great too. Name-brand carbon rims are almost unaffordable, but I’ve had awesome experiences with Light Bicycle and Speedsafe double-walled assymmetric hookless rims, lots of info on MTBR for these brands. I’ve had great luck using Pillar spokes in addition to DT Competition, prefer brass nipples over alloy in order to keep a true longer, but can’t overemphasize how important a good build is to overall quality. Sometimes I’m just not happy with what I could do and I’ll bring it in to my local bike shop and they’ll true and tension it nicely for a few bucks.