Why did the A2000 cost so much more than everything else? I have always wondered about this because as you said it offers nothing more than a few extra slots...
I'm guessing it's because chickenhead was trying to make a profit so they marked up the price? Or maybe the A2000 price was right but the wedgies were under priced? Maybe it is because of the better PSU?
It really was not that much higher a price. 2000 came out at about $1500. The Amiga 500 was about $600 at its debut. So less than a grand more to get a large case, double the RAM (and this was when RAM was very expensive. That A501 to bring the 500 up to the 2000 RAM was almost $200 alone), better power supply, just a few more slots (try 4 more slots), a video slot, a cpu slot, ISA slots, and space for drives inside. No centipede working its way along your desk if you wanted to add more than one additional expansion.
Were it "just a few extra slots" it might not have been worth it, but all things considered it did offer quite a bit more than a 500. To compare one would have to look at prices of things that added as much to the 500 like the Bodega Bay (which still did not add RAM, video slots or CPU slots) on top of the 500 price. If it was anywhere close to $900 to add less, then the 2000 still ends up a better deal. Then don't forget to also add the $180 for the 501 RAM expansion.
The 600 was not very good at that time and considered the worst Amiga because the 500 market was so large. There were a ton of expansions both using the expansion slot and the CPU slot that the 600 could use none of. Instead the 600 had built in hard drive but at the time 2.5" drives were very expensive. PCMCIA cards were also very expensive at that time. Both being parts used in laptops. The laptop tax on prices made these expensive for a budget Amiga purchaser.
Today, the 600 is a great machine. IDE 2.5" drives and CF or SD adapters are inexpensive and the PCMCIA cards you can get for Ethernet, wireless and CF cards to transfer files to PC are cheap.
For compactness, you cant get better than the 600 today without running emulation on a laptop. 1200 running a close second and honestly, the 1200 I think is the best Amiga for actual Amiga hardware.
