I think the only thing the empeg guys could have done to get me to buy one back then isn't to add new features, but rather to convince me that it really is worth the price.

Exactly. And how do they do that?

MARKETING. The one thing we all expected to see when the team/product was purchased by Sonic|blue. Something that, as far as I can tell, didn't happen.

That's the point I was trying to make here.