"If you are trying to project a premium image, users eventually resent paying super-premium prices for discount internals."
I don't think this is true, for two reasons. First, people who are interested in buying "premium" stuff are primarily interested in impressing other people. As long as other people are impressed, it doesn't matter how good or bad the product actually is.
Second, there's a well-known effect in marketing: if you have a crappy product, you can sell it cheap, or alternatively, you can make it pretty, mark the price up to silly levels, and sell it as premium. People who buy it will tend not to even admit to themselves that it's not so good, because that would mean admitting that they got taken -- and if it's something that they've been using to impress others with, they are also motivated to maintain the "this is awesome" fiction to them as well.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
