No it's not a bad idea at all, per se.. however the majority of the people do not have the time really required to invest ion researching everything they REALLY need to research before just ordering a pile of hardware that doesn't work properly together.

Some things, like USB are easy.. there are only two standards, usb1 and usb2 (but usb 3 is coming out in a few month's time)

Hard drive wise, there are 3 formats, and also raid configuration to understand. Memory has many different variables, voltage, speed, and some motherboards require it be added in pairs. Lots to learn there.

Same with system cooling solutions, and various proessors available now as well.

If you already know a ton of this stuff, its not that hard.. but for the majority of computer users, it's a TON to learn.. and many ofd us already have a ton to learn as well.

I'm looking at my zbrush manual, my vue7 manual, my lightwave manuals, modo tutorials, poser pro manuals, cs4 updated features, and more stuff then I can even remember right now that I need to learn.

The problem with doing 3d artwork, is we use many programs,l and need to have a good handle on a ton of stuff, and as soon as you learn it, everything gets updated again, and you need to relearn all over again.

I just made the concious choice at one point that I will NOT work for my computer nymore..l it is supposed to do work for ME, and make my work easier.. not add more.

The last system I built took about a month's worth of research, and probably 3-4 weeks of assebly installing and tweaking settings to get everything working just right. I simply don;t have 2 months time to invest in upgrading a system.

Yes, it IS cheaper, but when I look at all the additional hours I had to invest to save that money, it works out cheaper is someone else builds it for me, even if I only value my time at minimum wage.

With my new gateway, I spent maybe 2 hours replacing the psu, popping in vidoecard from my recent work system, and popping in my additional HD.

There's a break even point where some minor additional work saves you money.. once you cross over a certain amount of additional hours, it ends up costing you more maybe not in work hours, but in learning and assembly time.

Someday I might decide to tinker around again and build another new system from scratch, but my time is more valuable to me of late, and I can't afford the lost training time away from all my other software just to upgrade my system.

(Plus I also have to maintain and keep my wife's system up to date and working as well.. hell that ALONE is a full time job some weeks! LOL!)

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.