It's a really good point. I too think we are at the stage of deminishing returns.LEDs, laptops, high tech gagetry. It's really been an interesting thing watching the cpu speed race, go up, then back down. This is, as they find there is a sweet spot for power consumption in the 2ghz range and that adding cores, secondary cache has more benefit in real terms without increasing TDP/wattage used by said cpu. Also, they are running into problems with dialectric leakage at the ever shrinking size of lithography used to make the integrated circuits. My interest is purely as a layman, but it seems "commodity" parts for computers are really becoming a reality as the production must be getting cheaper (they are using Atom cpus in devices from phones to supercomputers (the same can be said for "cell" processors)). For the Silverthorne (i think 200 series of Atom cpus) it states on wikipedia that they are getting 2500 cpus per 300mm2 wafer. I don't know exactly how that compares with larger and more complex cpus but i imagine it's many factors cheaper to manufacture. I know there is a real argument to be made for halting the common practice of manufacturers planning obsolescence into designs. But another time/place to discuss that perhaps..
