"I think its rather presumptuous to posit that anyone who buys apple products is a fan of totalitarian control."

I agree and I don't - I was saying that mostly they don't realize that's what they are getting because they never see the alternatives. I was actually putting you in the fan of totalitarian control column, along with anyone else who, aware of it, says "what's the big deal". But you do make an excellent point, if people genuinely see 'being cool' as a legitimate 'feature' of a product, that's their business, as is if they wish to give it more weight than 'function', 'value for money' and 'quality' - I'm not being facetious, with the spread of iPods and mp3s, I have to come to the realization that some people really think cool factor is more important than those things. I just find it really hard to respect anyone who has priorities like that.