culture of greed, (&, All)
You may, or may not be right. The thing is most people (especially the amateur to semi-pro Pro Tools users)want something that works right out of the box(or almost right out of the box). Kind of like the people who purchase iMac's. Us pro guys expect to have to custom, or specialty modify our equipment because that's just the nature of the equipment we purchase, & use.
Imagine you going into 'Guitar Center', talking to a 'Sam Ash' ,or 'Musicians Friend' rep. & you want to buy an M Box, or Digi 002. The sales guy tells you that you can buy this computer co-designed/manufactured by Digidesign that you can have up, & running with your M Box, or Digi 002 in 15 minutes. Or you can buy the M Box, or Digi 002 but you have to do this, and this, and that to your computer which depending on who you bought it from could cause you to have to take it in the shop, send it to the manufacturer ,or what have you depending on your computer's warranty, or extended warranty underwriter. I know this is true. I've had manufacturer's tell me that if I install a part that was'nt in the computer when I purchased it from them that it would void the warranty. Or the sales rep might tell you that you have to buy a whole new computer anyways so you might as well buy the Terra Digital Audio unit. The average person just wants to hook it up in 15 minutes, & start recording(especially those Christmas time purchasers). And the average person is going to buy a M Box, or Digi 002. Get my point? So you know that if a person does'nt want to spend more than 15 minutes hooking up their recording setup they're not going to want to build their own computer. This just gives people a PC that does mainstream audio right out of the box. Now the only thing that Terra Digital Audio 'must' do is make sure that their tech. support is on par with companys like 'Dell', & etc., and they'll have/keep plenty of business. That' one reason why 'Dell' has such an extensive market share. Good reliability, & good tech. support although I've heard stories that their reputation is not quite as pristine as it used to be.
Rob G..
P.S.: This post is almost an entire duplicate of something I posted over at 'Harmony Central' but, seems as thought the same information applies as a response to you, & others viewing who may have the same opinion as you.

stike