Anything but a Squeezebox product is essentially throwing money away in one of two ways.

1. Cheaper/inferior, less functional or lesser known fly-by-night products will leave you high and dry for features you'll notice you're missing or support, updates or without a future for updates. You're going to need to buy something else eventually. The Apple AIrport Express and even an Apple TV fit into this category even though they come from an otherwise reputable company. This is also where the Roku stuff fit in. They never had their own server software and those products are now essentially obsolete (I wouldn't touch anything from Roku).

2. More expensive products aren't likely to buy you much more convenience and certainly not likely features nor quality. You'd just be overpaying really.

The only products worth mentioning here to compare against the Squeezebox products are Sonos, Olive and Sooloos, IMO.

BTW, with the new Squeezebox Touch (not yet available) you don't need a separate machine as a dedicated server to play local music - you can connect a drive directly to the unit if you'd like/prefer. However, it doesn't have a built-in amp nor speakers.

The Squeezebox Radio has a single speaker and a small colour LCD, while the Boom has multiple including a subwoofer and a VFD like the Classic Squeezebox (SB3). Logitech seem to be in this for the long haul with their acquisition of Slim Devices, so you can expect software updates and product releases for years. They're building the business a lot slower than they did with their Harmony remote line, but it's the most long-term and solid looking solution on the market at this time.