Well take my laptop for example, a MacBook Pro 15" wodescreen with 2Gb Ram, 100 GB 7200RPM harddrive, 256mb graphics card and a super drive. All the bells and whistles and it was like $2500 of I remember correctly.
Now you can get a 15" with 3Gb (mine only supports 2Gb) RAM, though a plus is that mine has a 7200rpm hardrive and the fastest the newer model has is 5400. and a faster more efficient processor (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo as opposed to my 2.16 Core Duo) and its the same price as mine so now if I want to keep up I have to shell out another $2500.
That was my point, I don't like it because I have this compulsive feeling telling me I need to get the best.