>And, of course it's not a "replacement" for upper end machines, I'm saying that it's better than upper end machines from 2 years ago.
Okay, you make some reasonable points. My opinion about the limitation is not so much horsepower, which is a given, or about two year old machines' horsepower, it's more about the cost to make the mini actually work for most people, and that this kind of canny built in limitation is a long standing Jobs strategery. But again, for my mom, or to put on a desktop as an adjunct to already extant Wintel peripherals...well, the Apple mini's just peachy.
Now, when will you/they have a "mini" priced NHT digi system? I'd be truly happy to bitch about a problem like that.