There is a distinct different between being overly self centered , myopic , and selfish and wanting to get value for you money. Not every vendor has to offer something for you. What should be looking for is vendors who are aligned with the value propositions you are looking for. ideally should be looking for win/win. Where vendors offers what they want to offer and you get what you want to get.
Apple offers balanced, well made workstations. They also don't lowball on price. They don't do "loss leader" boxes where one product line is suppose to subsidize another. Their value prop is also that they make enough money so can be reasonably confident will be around 4-6 years from now.
ok, let's make this simple, you mention comparing apples to oranges: currently, the Apple to PC comparison is a valid one - they are all using the same internal parts! Before Apple switched to Intel, yes, Ghz clock speed, CPU even GPU were different, but now the only difference is the OS, motherboard, case and Price.
I don't know about you, but a fancy case and better OS (motherboards are motherboards) should not equal $1000 + price increase!
We are talking about high end desktop/workstation machines using SP 6 core chips (I personally am not going to buy the DP). So for me, as a diligent technical consumer, I should expect at least that Apple will be competitive with the price, RAM and GPU offering for configurations.
Most of these "Apple should build discount mini tower" tangents are primarily about creating apples to oranges comparisons and then ifso-factso tada Apple has to create a mini tower. They totally blow off the real core issues to try to make a point through misdirection and hope to loose enough folks along the with to form a mob.
You forget when Apple used to offer various desktops and workstations based on the PowerPC (6100-9500 series). They had intermediate desktops.
Most of these apples-to-oranges tangents often boil down in the end to "apple should shot itself in the foot so that I save more money" after strip off the misdirections. It is not a win/win situation. It is a "I should win so they should loose" one.
I am still confused with how comparing a high end PC workstation with the same Intel 6 core chip, ram, HD, GPU (well, we know the PC will come with a faster stock GPU no question
Apple is sitting on a giant stack of money. The folks who are looking for matches between what they want and Apple's design approaches are happy. The frustrated folks are those who are telling Apple to change their business policies and have no justification as to why that would be beneficial in a win/win context.
Their stack of money has come from iTunes, iPod and iPhone sales and soon to be iPad sales. Then their mobile division, then iMac sales. MacPro workstations do not account for their stack of $$ Apple knew their computer influence was nothing close to world dominance nor even 10% marketshare, so they created brilliant products with great ideas.
Awesome! I have an iPhone and iTunes. I want a MacPro because my current mac is dead and I do pro work.
More GHz for faster menu selections ? Seriously? . . . Chasing after highest GHz typically has folks blowing off other attributes to engage in the GHz war. They blow off memory size (not speed size so that can get as much as possible off the storage) and storage i/o ( again so can get things as quickly as possible off the storage ). It is a balance of all three that counts.
If you notice, I talked about memory. While you are talking about I/O you remind me: PC manufacturers are including deal-breaker prices for SSD - hmm, another thing Apple is not competing with.
Anyway, sure many Pro users are doing 3D animation and rendering. That will benefit from multiple cores. But what about us video editors and graphic designers? Again, FCP is not using more than 2 cores and needs to be updated. IT IS NOT EVEN 64 bit!! Rendering video does use more cores but there is much to the video process before the final render. Having higher clock speeds as a standard option (unlike last year where they started at 2.26 Ghz), is a good move on Apple's part because it makes everything more snappy and fast.
Not just menus but every click, drag, type, object move, scale, rotate, launch, clip, color correction, effect, ect. Multiple cores and HT don't help most of these everyday tasks that should not be confused with prosumer tasks. No matter how pro you are, you still need to click, drag, select, ect.
Loyal customer... What Apple owes you something on your next system because you previously bought one?
Yup, 20 years with Apple, vocal supporter in various school districts, IT supporter. I currently work in a modern Community College where I have proposed a 200-500k mac lab. Our sister college did that. But I need some support from Apple and I need to be able to justify a half million dollar proposal. Do you understand?
For my personal needs, ya I'm looking at 3k.