Pharmaceutical companies need to be understood for what they are: money-making enterprises. Their job is to take drugs--the newer drugs, mind you--and get as many people to take them as possible. So, on the one hand, I'd say take their claims with a grain of salt. However, they do sometimes produce some good products--I'd like to thank Big Pharma for my antipsychotic (its one of the newer ones, with fewer side effects than the old pills) and my (now generic) antidepressant.
Now, what I don't like is how we've not only been encouraged to take a pill-for-every-ill, the pills prescribed are almost always (big surprise here) the newest and most expensive ones available.
I think patients (and doctors, too) need to see that Big Pharma really is all about the money. Patients should try to solve their problems, whenever possible, without medical intervention, and doctors should try, whenever possible, to recommend non-drug options and/or prescribe lower cost, older medications. Its pretty simple, and its the kind of stuff groups such as Public Citizen have been advocating for years.
As for mental illness...I think there's mental illness, and then there's MENTAL ILLNESS. All too often, doctors diagnose what are really "problems in living" as some sort of mental illness and proceed to throw pills at the patient, I guess assuming that if they try enough meds, something will work. Then there's problems such as bipolar, schizophrenia, schizoaffective, psychotic depression, etc....these aren't just troubling or inconvenient; these are potentially incapacitating illnesses that demand prompt, safe, effective treatment.
I'm in a similar situation as you, Oats. I'm not the biggest fan of Big Pharma, but I don't want to take Lithium or Haldol, so I take the newer stuff, and it works reasonably well. I'd recommend that you take your medication as prescribed, unless its causing you some serious problems, and then you might want to see about switching it up a little. Antipsychotics--new and old--aren't miracle drugs, but they are the best thing going for psychotic disorders.