I understand the part about the budget. I don't understand the part about the psychological effect. I don't even know what to call it. I find it curious.
In my experience 1 in 4 upgrades are crap. Thinking back 10 or more years ago when I stuffed my PC with expansion cards. Sometimes these cards did not work, particular candidates were Modems and TV cards. Actually even half of my RAM upgrades were adventures, sometimes I had to remove all of the RAM and put it back in. (WTF?)
So this would be one explanation which I do experience. When I buy a Gadget and the cool stuff is hard-wired, this means to me: this Gadget is merged with the cool stuff.
