I honestly don't thing this unit 'needs' to be expensive.... not long haul anyway. It's only a matter of time before the "PC on a chip" becomes powerfull enough to handle all the Empeg does an more. You'll end up running some sort of DAC + Display(Geforce92 Go) + CPU. It will cost 250 to make and will sell for 700.

I give it 3 years, assuming civilization doesn't fall down by then.