Paul,
Hex level coding, no kidding OUCH! Do remember we have a very elitest bunch running things here in the US for Motec and, from what I have heard from down under, they they impose a handsome premium in the states. They also are almost Bond (007) like in keeping up with where units came from. If you have an issue with your system and they find out it didn't come through them, and they WILL find out, they'll tell you to go pound sand up your arse.
My very first statement was that Motec makes fine hardware and it works fine as well. There is absolutely no doubt about their quality. But stuff like giving you limited O2 sensor tuning and then you 'gotta pay IS like blackmail to me, especially when the US prices are considered. I know I have a bee in my bonnet about the Motec guys, but it is well deserved. They only want to walk around the big races with the deep pocket people here in the US and the every day, working guy be damned. Hence my comment about being able to achieve the same results at more reasonable costs. Mark my words, if they keep this attitude they'll end up going down the same road that Data General, SCO Unix and quite a number of other computing market vendors did when they couldn't break out of their elitest attitudes as computing hardware, especially, became more of a commodity. Given the commodity nature of the components that go into an engine management system, there is not excuse for charging outlandish prices for systems. The software has been around for years so there is little if any R&D cost there. The software architecture is very low level and simple as well even considering windows GUI interfaces. You can get this stuff coded in the Baltics, India, Russia and a number of other places for pennies. Sometimes you don't get half of what you pay for. High price MAY indicate good quality, but consider the difference between a 7 dollar bottle of grocery store wine and a 50 dollar bottle of fine wine, a very marked increase in quality. But, now compare that 50 dollar bottle of wine to a $250+ bottle: very little if any difference in the wine, but it has the label that says prestige and "ain't I hot shit cause I can buy a $250 dollar bottle of wine." Another example: a guy was selling an old table, very nice table, but an old table. Nobody would buy it! He tripled the price and said "I am selling an Antique table." Sold the next day. Did the person who bought it get what they paid for? Well, sort of, because now they can show off their antique table that they paid several thousand dollars for. I'll get down off my soap box now as I think I have made my point: I am not buying the "you get what you pay for" argument anymore - you've got to look deeper than that.
I agree about the cost of tough-books, that is why I have an IBM. I work for IBM but bought the LT on eBay

. But I have used Thinkpads for 8 years now and think they are very good systems. Some of the older Aptiva systems were not better than any other average desktop out there, but carried a premium price. That is why we are no longer in the retail desktop business: we started making very good wintel boxes that didn't compete well with most of the offerings at places like Circuit City and Best Buy. (So I do know there is a difference in quality, I just don't think cost is directly proportional to quaility all of the time, by a long shot.)
Regards,
Lynn