Yep. A lot of this was true of the old Mac Pro as well. I didn't know a lot of people who had even those, but those who did had absolutely no need for ECC RAM o

Yep. A lot of this was true of the old Mac Pro as well. I didn't know a lot of people who had even those, but those who did had absolutely no need for ECC RAM or server Xeons. Or for that matter a case made of steel. The Apple tax on these things isn't so much in the price as in selling you things you don't actually need with no way to customize them to your needs. Note that I don't disagree that Apple makes probably the best overall laptops on the market. But on the desktop, both low and high end, their products are almost pure gouge.