I see an opportunity for an entrepeneurial engineer. Since Thunderbolt is basically an external PCI bus, someone could build an mini-tower chassis with 2-3 PCI Express slots, a few drive bays (including an optical drive), and a spot for a Mac Mini. Design it in aluminum to look like a midget version of the Mac Pro.
“I see an opportunity for an entrepeneurial engineer. Since Thunderbolt is basically an external PCI bus, someone could build an mini-tower chassis with 2-3 PCI Express slots, a few drive bays (including an optical drive), and a spot for a Mac Mini. Design it in aluminum to look like a midget version of the Mac Pro.”
That sounds OK in its own right, but misses the mark for what I have in mind. That being at least a Core i7 quad core CPU, and a high-end AMD/ATI graphics card (6870/6970 1-2GB), and memory expansion to 32 GB. That is still less capability than a full-blown Mac Pro, and would have fewer drive bays etc.
In addition to being more powerful than the iMacs, it would allow for sane repairs (replace modular parts), and would not be a throwaway if the screen dies. Three drive bays + Thunderbolt would be plenty of expansion.
These days this could be done for $1500 with entry level memory, and still give nice profit margins. That’s a cool $1000 less than the entry-level Mac Pro.