re: bragging rights
you are so right...companies do that for bragging rights
before i was a pc tech, i was a salesman at the world's largest office and computer retailer and they posted some of the lowset prices on SOME models of computers anywhere on the globe
...no they didn't make a dime off these machines and after shipping, the company lost money
...but it was for that bragging "wow" factor for our "cheap prices"
...and that brought people in to also buy peripherals, paper, ink, paperclips, folders, coffeemakers, refrigerators, coffee, cookies, sodas, pens, maps, software, furniture, floor mats, books, kleenex, toilet paper, tvs, radios, typewriters, calculators, etc...and those items made the profit for the company, and we are talking billions which the company used to swallow up legions of their competitors like office max, viking, office club, and many other multinational coporations
...so in big business, bragging rights are a necessary expense
...the huge losing proposition called the NSX wowed the car world and put acura on the map of the big boys and helped sell their "ordinary" cars in obscene amounts and mounted a real threat to toyota and nissan!