Well, here's the thing.

Backintheday computers were things nerds had. Then they were things everybody had. Smartphones were things nerds had. Then they were things everybody had. Tablets were things nerds had. Then they became things everybody had. What we're seeing is device optimization for the tasks people use them for - my dad used to have a 6,000 node network and by his statistics, 90% of the computer usage was Outlook and Internet Explorer. You just don't need a desktop for web and email.

At the same time, the barrier to entry for manufacturing has gotten a lot lower. You look at something like the Raspberry Pi or the Pebble and you see ASICs and custom components on what are essentially boutique items. A run of a hundred video cards suddenly becomes economically feasible. Rapid prototyping has hit the experimenter shed. You can do things with Arduino that used to require an ASIC. CPUs are the province of four companies - Motorola, Apple, Intel and AMD - but CPUs used to be the province of Motorola, Cyrix, Intel and AMD so have we really lost anything?

Alienware and Rosewill were never selling to Asus or Dell. The gamer gear is the gamer gear and shall be the gamer gear forever and ever amen. OLED is found in mobile platforms because there's no advantage to OLED on the desktop - lemme tell ya, I used to be a member of SID and the problems inherent in OLED are such that you want to avoid the technology unless there simply isn't a better choice.

The kids are all right, man. I promise. When 95% of the world doesn't use anything outside the browser, we're better off not optimizing computers to run Internet Explorer. If an iPad will do everything your girlfriend needs to do, there's no reason to saddle her with an XPS.