Did it ever possibly occur to anyone that Apple intends to use both sets of packagings?
Here's my theory on it. Most Leopard users are going to take advantage of the $29 Leopard upgrade. At $29, the last thing Apple should do (if they're smart) is spend a fortune on packaging. My guess is that for all of those upgrading, Apple will be going with a plastic sleeve or cardboard sleeve for the disc and have it come in a box or packaging that's lighter in color, uses less ink, and costs less to produce in volume. In that vain, the Snow Leopard print could be done with less ink and cost to Apple and still have a simplistic elegance befitting Apple.
Is it as awesome as the packaging possessing "The Shiny"? Obviously not... but then again, beggars can't be choosers and you're getting a highly refined and significantly upgraded, at the core, OS for $29. Even the majority of Vista upgraders are having to shell out at least $79 and by comparison... after the debacle that Vista was, they should be getting the upgrades to 7 for free just to make the darn thing usable/enjoyable, trouble-free, and minimize the nuisances. I should know... my brand Dell Inspiron 1545's Control Panels within Vista, on a machine that's only a month old (and the only apps. that I'd installed over stock was Google Chrome and an Antivirus FWIW), constantly hangs and takes out Explorer on a regular basis. Thankfully, since I bought it within the last month, I get the Windows 7 upgrade for free. Hopefully it cures what ails it. LoL That said, after the Engadget preview review of the GM, it doesn't sound like IE is cured. :\ Not that I'd want to run that thing anyhow.
Now keep in mind... not everyone that might buy Snow Leopard is a Leopard user. For those that don't own Leopard today that might be inclined to buy Snow Leopard for their older Non-Leopard equipped Intel machines... there will be a need to have a regular $129 retail package. For those customers... "The Full Monty" is more liable to be in order and as a result of the higher pricetag, they are perhaps more inclined to get a more premium packaging experience. That includes the large box with holographic-style treatments (see the Leopard box or the Snow Leopard box shots shown on Apple.com), etc. etc.
I'm not going to say that it is or isn't the real deal, but it does make plausible sense to me that Apple would need a cheaper packaging solution for what is going to be a dirt cheap upgrade to it's Leopard client base. For the amount of time and effort put into it, I'm sure that the $29 isn't remotely a case of Apple getting a huge financial return on the blood, sweat, and tears (and $ to their workers) invested in making this product which is a total spring cleaning and foundation for the future roadmap of the Mac OS going forward. The less money they spend on packaging, the greater potential they have to eek out "some" margins on the sale of the upgrade discs. That said, the more customers Apple switches up to Snow Leopard, the better for any future functionalities that Snow Leopard unlocks that previous OS'es lacked and helps drive the future/new tech within the company.
