"Market for cutting edge PCs that cost >$3K just so their owners can shoot their weapons in Quake XXXIV 3/1000ths of a second faster than their opponents: small."
Maybe if you go and by the latest and greatest Dell, you will spend 3k. If you go to a local computer store and have them build you a mid range computer for gaming, you will pay less than 1k and have a very decent gaming PC. Remember, you don't have to go out and buy a monitor, speakers, printer, mouse, keyboard, USB devices every time you want to get a new PC. You could build it yourself and save even more money than from a local computer store. I used to do this. These days , I would rather pay a few extra bucks to have someone else build me a PC with the parts that I want.
I am really amazed that nobody here is in the longhorn beta programs. I installed one of the earlier betas several months ago. Not all of the features were filled in but it looks to have potential to have some great improvments.
Running: Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 1 (5.1 - 2600)
CPU: 1-Intel Pentium 4, 3067MHz, 512KB (0% Load)
RAM Usage: 307/480MB (63.96%)
Uptime: 2hrs 17mins
BestUp: 2wks 3days 21hrs 13mins On: 11/17/2002
Total HD Space: 229.1G Total Free HD Space: 78.18G
Got that from dell for 599.00 So a 3k$ would be one massive machine.