No, iMac is supposedly a desktop by Apple standards and should be treated as such. If anything it needs MORE ports, it and the Mini should at least have gotten Expresscard slots years ago.
A few more ports on the back of an iMac would not be a bad move. It has more than it used to. Though, I think Apple is more in the mindset that you should have a wireless keyboard/mouse and not need to hog two USB ports. Which most people aren't plugging in tons of things: a printer, an external hard drive... and that's about it for MOST people. A slot for a thumb drive is still open. And even if you don't go wireless, the keyboard gives you two USB slots for quick access.
Apple might treat the iMac like a desktop class machine, but by technical specifications it's really a laptop on the inside that gets a bit of a bonus with ventilation and cooling. Though, I don't think Apple is neglecting the desktop market without reason... people aren't buy those systems much anymore.
Just get the Apple external superdrive and you'll be good to go.
Problem. Solved.
And an external drive is around $100 these days. If they drop the price of machines a $100, it's a moot point about the OD anyway. IF they drop the price.
Everybody is neglecting the workstation market. Go over to Dell.com or HP.com and you will see what I mean. But you should remember that there is nothing to update right now. Apple is not going to update the Mac Pro without new CPUs, which have not yet become available. Again, same thing with HP and Dell workstations.
It is still very much limited. You are stuck with that monitor, stuck with whatever GPU you get (since they are mobility versions), and expansion slots are extremely limiting. All you really need to consider is size. Mid towers and full towers just offer more flexibility than trying to cram everyone into a smaller space. And I am confident that I could show you multiple examples of what I am talking about instead of just 1.
Even the workstation market is nearly dead. They're obsolete in many environments. At my last job, we had 30 terminals in the store. They were basically just monitors hooked up to a small box that connected to our server. No work station required. And it's a heck of a lot cheaper.
The reason you see less towers and desk-top class systems is because people don't buy them anymore. It's become a mobile world. This leaves certain businesses markets where people still need these things, but that's getting smaller and smaller.
The average person doesn't care about being able to expand their computer or replace parts. In 3-4 years, they want a new machine anyway. Our whole society has turned disposable for things. This isn't the late 1980s to mid 1990s. We had a period where things were slow to change, and then technology was drastically different all the time. You either didn't need to update so fast, or had a more pressing argument for wanting to upgrade processors and things. Now, we see mostly incremental speed bumps to things. Tech is tapped out. Intel uses all sorts of nice specs when they put out new silicon, but it's never really much faster that anyone would notice. So in that 3-4 year window, whats coming out on the market will just finally be different enough/better than what you have around the time most people have grown bored. Sure, there are people who hawk a machine every year... but that's not normal. Generally, people don't notice performance hits in their machines until software evolves (new OS, advanced architecture in their aps, new under the hood technologies that don't work on old systems), and that usually comes in at the 4 year mark. Especially for Macs, that hold their own much longer than PCs. Power PC machines seemed to hold even truer to that.
Not saying there isn't some market for towers and work stations, but it's gone from being 75% of the market to around 25% of the market in the past decade. That's a huge shift in where people spend their money, and that's why companies aren't investing R&D in that 25%.
rules