@swift240
It would be, though, wouldn't it? Millions of people buy PCs, hundreds (at best) buy Amigas - not because they're more expensive, but because there's no software for it.
Basic economies of scale: PCs = high production run = low unit cost; Amigas = low production run (owing to low demand) = high unit cost.
Do you really think the makers of low-volume hardware want the computer to be this expensive?
There already is one - the Sam 440ep. The X1000 isn't designed for this, it's designed to be the fastest computer possible at that time for people with enough cash. It's not for people who want "affordable" it's for people who want "the fastest for AmigaOS", and that meant at the time the PA6T. It's the same anywhere else - on a PC if you want the fastest you pay through the nose for it. Same on Mac. Same on everything.
It's not an excuse. It's simply that the Amiga market is very small, and there's not much money in it. We're lucky that there's anybody at all doing anything with it.
But not the right technology. Sure you can get cheap x86 CPUs but not cheap PPC CPUs (and that's an argument for another thread 
)
Yes, the price does need to be high - at least if you don't want it to be a PC.
The Amiga is a niche market. It doesn't run 99.99% of software that people want to run, therefore most people don't want it. Demand is comparatively very low, therefore production runs also have to be very low.
If you're going to sell 10 million units in the first month like an Xbox or something, you can afford to produce 10 million components, but if you're only going to sell 50, you can only produce 50. That raises the unit cost for each part massively.
I agree with that! Using commodity (i.e. PC) hardware will naturally be much cheaper because the market is so much bigger.
You're right about the A1200. If you don't want to buy an AOS 4 machine then no-one's forcing you to.
The way you wrote your post you make it sound like the people making OS4 machines are choosing to make it expensive? Yet it's well documented that in the case of the X1000, Trevor is actually subsidising the production!
Low volume hardware will always be much much more expensive than high volume commodity hardware, that's just the way of the world.
High prices are the sacrifice you make for being in a hobby that involves low production volumes - this isn't just for Amigas, it's for any hobby which involves low volume production runs.
The alternative is to do it the CUSA way - just take a cheap PC and stick an "Amiga" sticker on it and call it an Amiga.... but I'd much rather pay more and get something that is designed for and runs AmigaOS.
I AGREE with you 100% in everything you said, 100%!!!
That is why I am getting Sam440, it is like buying an Amiga 1200 instead of the A4000T for example. The system never changed in the way Amiga distribute it's machines, just the motherboard and software changed that is all.
That is why there was an Amiga 500, 500+, 600 and 1200. For people who could not afford A2000, 3000, and the 4000.
By the way I am not getting the SAM yet, not until I am done with my A1200 modification and seal it. Need to get the apollo 1260, get the FastIDE from AmigaKit, and get the WiFi working, upgrade the HD to 500 GB (so it can hold lots of movies for me) and update the filesystem and upgrade the OS on it with all the boingball updates.
When it is finished, then I will get SAM, then I have finalized all my Amiga hardware collections, what is left is put into software and not hardware.
