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While I somewhat agree with the car analogy it is a bit flawed. If BMW was putting Chevy parts in it's BMW body and charging twice the price of Chevy then it would be a perfect analogy. They aren't doing that but Apple is. That's all I'm saying. Not once did I knock their products. They are awesome, people love them, they last. They have issues as all products do but overall they are great. You feel good paying 1000 extra for an Apple logo on a nice case and that's fine but 89.3% of purchasers do not. And it will very likely always be that way.
Your "perfect analogy" is not perfect. Are there some "chevy" parts being put into a "bmw" body? Sure. The mac hard drive is not better than a pc hard drive. But there are other differences. The "nice case" is more than an aesthetic difference: for me, having a solid metal body is definitely preferable to a flimsy plastic one, for durability reasons. Also, the detail reproduced by Apple screens is far better than most other laptops and monitors (for the consumer market anyway, I don't mean with respect to super fancy and expensive graphic design monitors). And don't forget the OS. It really does run more efficiently and requires far less troubleshooting (and don't get me wrong: I do know how to troubleshoot windows, but I don't have time to waste on that sort of thing). I have multiple mac's, and I've NEVER had to troubleshoot a single one for anything. Can't say that about any of my windows boxes. And there are also many details in the design that people like. Small things like the magnetic adapter, and a really really nice touchpad (nicest one I've ever used). These little things add up.
And all of the things I've mentioned add up to create what a Mac product is, and that's why you're paying more. And that's not even couting their stellar customer service, which is far beyond anything else I've come across.
Now I'm not a fanboy at all. I look at things very objectively, especially when it comes to spending my hard earned money.
Are Macs expensive? Sure. Are some of them overpriced? Yes. (Mac Pro and white Macbook I'm looking at you! And maybe the mac mini too).
But look at the iMac, and compare it to the price of similar all-in-one pc's. The price is not very different. (you can't compare them to tower desktops, it's a different category).
There's more to a computer than just the parts that go into it.
My main point is you can't just make blanket statements about a company's products while ignoring many specific facets of these products. You have to look at all parts of the package and see the whole picture. Apple's growth has been tremendous, so they're doing something right (and it's not just marketing, because if they fooled someone into buying an overpriced product, that person would never buy another Apple product... but consumers are seeing that they ARE getting something for the extra cost, and they keep coming back).
Now, you do have a very valid point that in some ways Apple's high price points are hurting them. But not that much, not yet anyway, as evidenced by their rapid growth. I do think that they would sell more products if they had better price points, especially for their introductory models. But that's a whole other issue!
Every product you can buy has different price points. You can get a cheap car, or a fancy one. You can buy a $5 steak or a $10 steak or a $30 steak.
Wether the benefits of the more expensive product are worth it or not depend on the individual consumer. I don't need the leather seats in a BMW, although they are nice. But I would enjoy the smoother and more powerful ride (and with this analogy, keep in mind that pure horsepower does not equal speed if you have an inefficient vehicle).
Again, it's not just about specs. It's about design, quality, software, attention to detail, support, and customer service, among other things. The combination of all these things make Apple products... into Apple products!
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