Herb--you're forgetting the power of eBay. In years past, when buying a new computer, internal upgradability/expandibility was a major factor because once you bought the machine, you were generally "stuck" with it until it died, 'cus the resale value was so low (at least for PCs) and the resale process was such a pain in the behind.
Upgradability is still a large factor, of course, but thanks to eBay--and to the far higher resale value of Macs in general--it's less of one than it used to be.
I sold my 400 MHz PowerMac G4 (with some upgrades--2nd hard drive, etc--for an even $1,000 in 2001 (I had only listed it at $600, but thanks to the magic of the "last minute bidder" effect, it ramped up another $400!)
Last spring I sold my 500 MHz, CD-Rom-only iBook for $800 (granted, it was maxed out on RAM and had an Airport installed, and I also threw in a whole mess of oddball extras, but still...). Replaced it with a clearance model 900 MHz Combo drive iBook for...$850 from MicroCenter. As fi_bait can attest, there was a nice surprise bonus as well--it had its' own Airport card preinstalled and was, yes, maxed out on RAM even though neither of these was supposed to be included in that particular stock model. In addition, MC had a $100 rebate at the time for setting up a store credit card, so I ended up only paying $750. Add in tax, and I ended up getting essentially a free upgrade.
Next spring, unless the next PowerMac upgrades are particularly impressive (or the prices drop substantially), I intend on replacing my current PowerMac G4 867 QuickSilver with a maxed-out 20" iMac G5. This is officially considered a "downgrade" but it's actually still a huge upgrade from my current machine. After using it for X-many years, I'll just sell it on eBay as well for whatever comes then.
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