A lot of people (myself included) like to buy the best equipment they can afford. I (like Roadie) have an Antec P180 case for example, we dont need them, but they sure are nice
Not disagreeing with your comment at all, a lot of things people dont need, just want, and in some ways vice versa. I dont want to buy a new hdd, but my 200gb one is almost full so I'll whack another 250gb or so in there because in the near future I will need it.
I dont like to rave on about my pc specs, mainly because its not worth raving about
Ive got an athlon that was one of the best when I bought it,
some ram that was the best when I bought it,
a motherboard that was cheap and fits the bill,
a gf6600gt which was a massive improvement over my old 9600xt
a 250gb sata hdd which is sata because the new mobo is
an audigy2 zs which again was good when i bought it lol
a hiper 580w modular psu which is I admit fairly cool
the aforementioned antec case which I really like as it looks good and is nice to work with - when I do change components etc
probably some other stuff ive forgotten
A couple of years ago when I bought the bits I was one of those who would rant about how it 'PWNZoRZ Ur N00B RiG!1!1' or something similar, but meh, we all grow out of things.