You wrote the keyword yourself .. yes .. laptop. Most people with average use would get a laptop, or hell .. an iPad for their daily computing and be happy with it as long as it does Twitter, Facebook and chats.
Anyone cares enough about spec, and willing to have their hands dirty on computer guts would get a desktop. It doesn't sell as much today, but I still think, those people still care about changing/upgrading their own HDD, SSD, RAM, or even CPU/GPU.
I suppose you might be right. Everyone I know that owns a tower (excluding mac tower people funnily enough) knows a helluva lot more about their computers then their laptop counterparts. But then again as you said most people own laptops, and most people, don't know that much about computers!