I think I've made two exceptions to my usual ruleset.
One was Google. It didn't pay dividends at all. Which usually means it's not in my portfolio. But I played it some time back from $401 region, to about $598. Got nervous around that $600 level, and dumped out of it. That was a pretty special case though - but it's because I come from an I.T. background. And I think that Google is one of the few companies out there that understands that the Internet is in it's sheer infancy. Even today.
The other was TSM. I bought TSM (
Still hold it), but it only pays dividends once a year. Quite frankly - I wanted to diversify into the Pacific sector - so that's why I bought it. As they say: Diversification is the only free lunch the market offers. And I still like TSM's market share and business - even though their stock is too low to pay dividends every quarter. And since I play around with accumulation theory - I'm not averse to buying the stock that Fred mentioned. It would take a lot more digging on my part though.
But for every other stock that goes into my portfolio? It's all about quarterly DRIP'd divvy's.
(
FRO, GMR, SFL, JNJ, BAC, DTE, MS, BUD and many others)