Except that it is utterly fictional right now and won't be available for quite some time. I could design a product that costs $35 and does wonderful things too - won't make a difference until its actually shipped and in a customers hand.

Well, I believe that they will release it pretty soon (in the course of the month). And apart from the low price they have a likable mission behind the project.

Are you seriously think that such an expensive thing could be considered as a hack platform? I could buy a laptop for my friend for that price!

Seriously, Raspberry guys are even planning a buy-one-give-one thing. This double pie will cost less then a half of your plate.