This has been happening for a long, long time. Back in the day, we had an voice-mail system with a certain amount of storage. When you paid to increase the st

This has been happening for a long, long time. Back in the day, we had an voice-mail system with a certain amount of storage. When you paid to increase the storage a technician came on-site and removed a bolt that allowed the hard drive head to move farther into the disk. Camera manufacturers are a recent example. There are firmware "hacks" that allow you to access more advanced features from a less expensive body. Are these things bad? Maybe, but if you were the manufacturer would you rather source 2 (or 15) different components or just use 1 and modify it to fit the need and price point?