"just semantics"
absolutely not!
"What is the difference between giving you a $50 credit for something that costs them $15, and adding $50 to the base price for something that costs them $15?"
The difference is $35 both directions in profitability.
As you point out, there are certain components that simply don't exist as "delete" options at certain price ranges. You just can't find a $1,200 laptop without Wi-Fi or SuperDrive unless you bend yourself into a pretzel trying to prove a point. During the year or so in which Apple was still goofing with charging you $100 for Wi-Fi in a notebook price range at which you simply couldn't find a machine without it as a default component, it was an embarrassment. SuperDrive is the current incarnation of that.
Aside from a desire to defend your assertion, it stikes me as odd you're fighting so hard to deny the basic existence of SuperDrive as a basic component of any full-featured, midlevel, $1,200 laptop.
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