I want to log in with a user name, but what a hassle.
Anyhow, Apple has always front loaded a purchase price with hardware. That is why you can purchase much of it's software, including the OS, for a much lower price. (And a lot of the very nice utilities come free with the OS, giving a good out of the box experience.)
But the hardware is also usually loaded with goodies that make the price pretty comparable to an equally loaded WinPC.
There is a legitimate complaint, however, about the price of product upgrades (such as HD and RAM) as well as a lack of a lower cost machine. They really should put difficult to upgrade parts more in parody with DIY upgrades, tacking on maybe $50 over retail on a hard drive upgrade. Charging what they do for RAM is just ridiculous, but I think those days are coming to an end.
A bad economy can repair a lot of attitudes on pricing, I think!