Regardless of Barry being the jerk he seems to be, I think CUSA has delivered what they have promised, unlike most commodore/amiga-related companies have done in the past decades.
For the ones complaining about it being an expensive piece of underpowered pc hardware, I think you are missing the point. You are paying for a C64 replica on the outside (with something usable inside). The "actual" product is the novelty case; the atom-based board is just a detail. You can buy a bare bones version, without a board, for $250, and put any mini-itx board with the CPU of your choice. (Destroying a real C64, and spending several days hacking it to put a pc inside seems really a poor alternative.)
And I don't think the case is so expensive, considering it is a nice quality custom case/keyboard, produced in low volumes, to be sold for old nerds/collectors like you and me. And I think you all know about economies of scale, since you often use this argument to justify things like a Sam board, which is hardware that can be compared to what the PC manufacturers and apple produced some 10 years ago, being sold today for about U$800 (and that includes only a bare board!).
Btw, what I liked the most was the keyboard. Have you seen that it includes a custom keyboard made of Cherry MX keys? Do you know these are high quality mechanical keys manufactured in Germany, instead of the el-cheapo silicone dome keys used in every keyboard that comes with PCs? Do you know that a PC keyboard with these keys cost U$150, for the keyboard alone??
To end, I just got an idea for an alternative retro system. What about using a C64x case and putting an FPGA-Arcade inside? As you may know, the FPGA-Arcade is/will be delivered as a mini-itx board, able to emulate most retro systems in its FPGA, including the Amiga, without using any lame PC hardware, and runs fan-less.
Yes, it is moderately complex to do it yourself. Yes, it's somewhat less than elegant. But it sure as hell isn't $190 worth of inelegance. (And I'm "just being contrary and argumentative?" What kind of insult is that? Are you trying to shame me into agreeing that $250 for a novelty case is totally a good deal? 'Cause that ain't happening.)
People keep bringing up "well, x also exists, and it costs as much or more!" like that means anything at all. $200 cases? $400 keyboards? Of course there's other ridiculously-priced shit out there, Barry isn't even remotely the first person to think of selling overpriced mediocrity to stupid people. That doesn't make it not overpriced.
