No, I'm not making such a statement since I'm probably closer to the 1% than the 99% anyhow. I'm saying all these products offer little value to consumers for the price they are at.
You know the saying, you can get 90% of the performance for 10% of the cost, and the other 10% of the performance for 90% of the cost. Consumers don't need the last 10% of performance.
Thunderbolt is that last 10%.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I also believe that different consumers have different needs. I look at Thunderbolt through the lens of a user who was constantly saturating the external I/O bandwidth available on pre-Thunderbolt MacBook Pros. As Apple started replacing ExpressCard slots with SD card readers, things were looking pretty grim. ExpressCard at least gets me 250MB/s, but the only Mac left with one is the 17" MBP. The options after that are Gigabit Ethernet at 125MB/s, FireWire 800 at 80MB/s or USB 2.0 at 32MB/s. At 1000MB/s, Thunderbolt actually gives you the last 75% of performance vs ExpressCard or the last 92% vs FW800.
On the other hand, most consumers don't currently need or care about transfers at speeds faster than USB 2.0. And the 2011 Macs are anomalies anyway, in that they will most likely be the only Thunderbolt PCs ever produced that don't also have USB 3.0. And I will wholeheartedly agree that the audience for external devices that require more bandwidth than USB 3.0 provides is very small. Post Ivy Bridge, people will stop looking at Thunderbolt as an external storage interface unless they have very demanding needs or own a 2011 Thunderbolt Mac. Consumer or mainstream devices may well emerge as the technology matures and the cost comes down, but they will undoubtedly need to leverage the unique capabilities of Thunderbolt in order to not be undercut by an inherently cheaper USB 3.0 equivalent.
I've never known a consumer to buy what they really needed. As far as I can tell, they either buy what they want or whatever is marketed to them. How many people actually need an SUV or any car that puts out more than 250BHP, yet how many do you see on the road? And value? What consumer knows anything about that?
*sigh*. And I have a Cisco Pix 501 here in my house which I used for years as my Internet firewall. That doesn't make it a consumer product.
IPS TVs are not IPS computer monitors. There's a reason consumers want IPS in a TV, viewing angles. I don't always sit straight in front of a TV, especially if I'm having a bunch of people over to watch the game or something.
Thunderbolt looks more and more like its being aimed at the prosumer/professional market. Not the consumer. The products reflect that (SSD external enclosures, RAID arrays, 300$ port extenders, IPS monitors with some ports on it).
I was going to point out that all pros are also consumers when they're not on the clock. I guess you illustrated the corollary of that by demonstrating that using pro gear around the house doesn't necessarily make it generally appropriate for consumers.
All consumers would love to have IPS displays in all their gear, which is why most Apple devices currently use the technology. Most people have no idea what the difference is between various display technologies, and so when buying a monitor, they only look at the marketing specs which tout cost, size and "Full HD!". They tend to buy 24-inch, 1920x1080, TN panels for $140 because they have no idea how these differ from $1k, 27", 2560x1440, IPS panels, except for the 3 inches. Thank goodness Apple knows what's best for the poor consumers and forces it on them.
I know you're not going to agree with me, but despite the $1000 price tag, the Apple Thunderbolt Display is very clearly targeted at consumers. It's actually a fairly marginal display for many professional uses.
I'm a bit surprised that anyone ever thought Thunderbolt was intended to be for inexpensive consumer devices. It's a bi-directional, 20Gbps I/O interface. All of the similarly capable solutions currently available are ludicrously expensive, even compared to Thunderbolt. Price out 10GbE, Fibre Channel, external mini-SAS, or InfiniBand gear, or point me to a laptop that ships with one of these interfaces built in.
It seems to me that there are a lot of folks who got excited about Thunderbolt for whatever reason and are now disappointed that they don't actually need it. The most common reaction seems to be annoyance at the high prices, but the reality is that the prices are just fine, as long as you really need a solution that Thunderbolt can currently provide.
(I work next to the stock exchange in Montreal).