Before the Amiga 1000 was affordable I was given an STM (no built in drive, but had a TV modulator built in) as a birthday present, at my own request....16 colours was a bit limiting for computer art and Commodore mouse was OTT in price like £50 and another £50+ for GEOS I think, 25% the value of an ST which had mouse and GEM included!
I got it specifically because I didn't have 1250+VAT to spend on a computer for doodling on otherwise would have got an A1000, and the ST was the next best machine really. Then when all the idiots were offloading their 1000s when news of the A500 emerged I got one of those too for a good price.
Technically Paula/Copper/Blitter were light years ahead of Atari Shifter graphics/YM sound chip though, but it didn't matter as maybe only 5% used anything like the full power of Amiga, ST ports from the nobhead software houses in the UK charging £5 make me sick, I have no problem with the actual ST machine which at one point was £299 compared to £499+£20 modulator for A500. Pays your money and you get what you pay for.
I understand why some people hate the ST though, as if the ST didn't exist Amiga games might have been programmed properly, Amiga games should have looked similar to Sharp X68000 games NOT bloody ST games
