I found myself thinking the same more than once. If on one side having discontinued the empeg is sad, on the other side it really seems that the only bunch of people who could eclipse our Mark II s are in the empeg team itself, so for three years or more we've all be the owners of the best car stereo ever made and we still are. Now, this is very impressive in "today's world, where technology changes so rapidly"(TM) , and tells much about what an excellent (meaning effective, expandable, complete, smart, simple in a way) idea the empeg is.
Now, I can't really estimate what would have been in terms of replacement rate of my tech toys if I did not buy my empegs, but I am sure that I would have gone through a car MP3 compatible CD Player, then a CD Player + MP3 compatible CD Changer, them some hdd mp3 player to be used as a cd changer, and so on, until today, when I still would not have anything like the empeg.
I did save a considerable abount of money in these years.
After being unluky enough to have my first and perfectly working radio module stolen, my second radio module malfunctioning, my trial third radio module with a weak signal, I have to admit that a integrated radio solution, ALSO at the expenses of one internal drive, would have saved me so much trouble, and I now consider that the only weakness of the empeg design. I found at my own expenses that being a pull-out unit is a GREAT ADVANTAGE for a device like the empeg, and the radio module is not pull-out. If it wasn't for that, i would rate my "empeg experience" top score on ALL aspects. However, I still am a very satisfied customer. Now, that tells a lot about what's the value of the empeg.