It was an excellent idea at the time when tech market was the wild wild west era, and a creative individuals could carve out an empire from the beginnings of a house garage. Eye popping gaming capabilities had to be created that was affordable. Hence, the Amiga was born. Today, if you want to revisit the wild wild west, you can either take a flight to your favorite watering hole or take the Interstate Highway. If you think you can get there by horse and wagon, be prepared to meet certain traffic laws, enviromental laws and certain death from a auto accident. Until you can create a time machine, live for today, not the past.
Using your own comparison, personally I'm not seeking for the wild wild west, rather the excitement of that era. It won't be the excitement for new discoveries, but rather n excitement by using a computer which I like.
Sadly, Eyetech already did that with the A1 which was a generic (third party no less) mobo that happen to sport a PPC CPU (plus buggy chipset) and a boingball logo.
... and a OS specifically made for it.
The only difference between a A1 and x86 mobo, the x86 was a franction of the price, the chipsets worked with common obtained additions (aka RAM) and warranties are usually honored. So why don't you call old Allen up, tell him you got the perfect business model for him. He'll love it!
You're forgetting at least one other difference: the fact that we have now a single motherboard set as standard with its own OS, and not just an OS with a very poor support for the vast array of hardware in the x86 market. Isn't this a difference, too?
Varthall