Definitely a shame. My Dad's been holding out with his 2010 iMac, waiting for the equivalent Apple Silicon replacement. Not sure what his budget is, but this is definitely much higher than the iMac was, both on the low end and the high end.
I paid about $3500 for my maxed out late 2015 iMac (upgraded everything but RAM), and I would generally expect similar money to get me close to the current top end. But now that's the entry level. Even if you consider inflation (my iMac was $4100 in 2022 dollars), it's much closer to the new low end than the high end (approaching $10k for maxed out M1 Ultra + Studio Display!).
Obviously that new low end is more powerful than my top end was, but that's to be expected with any improvement in technology over time. It just feels like a worse value proposition when equivalent expenditure gets you something lower relative to the new product range.
It'll be interesting to see what people decide to do with the display - pay the ever-increasing Apple Tax for the Studio Display, or pay half or less for a very nice competing monitor? I do like the increased flexibility of not having your computer physically tied to your display, but ugh, the cost of that flexibility...
