I totally agree with the fact that upgrades are overpriced. Keep in mind though that Apple is in the middle of expanding its market, so they are capitalizing on it (from a business point of view). However, as a former Apple employee, I almost always advised people on where to go for RAM upgrades, instead of ripping them off with upgrades. I know it costs more as far as money ($100 vs $200), if you're spending 3,000 on a already pimped out laptop, what's another 200 more? I'm just playing devil's advocate, but it is, when it comes down to the value and quality, a big rip off.
One last thing, processor upgrades are not all the same. Apple processors are already high end (C2D T9800, etc.), so it's not like you're buying a crappy C2D (5700). My point is, they are already great processors at the high end, and you'll pay much more to increase the clock speed at that high end tier than it would at the lower processor tier. Blindly comparing C2D with C2D won't work, it must be a model-based comparison to ensure that they are actually the same processor.

"The problems with Apple RAM have been few and far between"

That's most likely because systems upgraded with Apple ram are few and far between. Most of us are quite happy using non-Apple RAM with no troubles.

This is 95% of the reason that apple got hosed back in the day with their clone producers. The clone makers would let you upgrade the machine for a reasonable cost and the result was that if you spec'd out an apple machine and a powercomputing machine, the apple would cost double. Its the same thing now if you load up a mac with ram&hard drives.

I find it one of the most distasteful parts of apple's retail policies. And it served them very very poorly back when the minimum ram configuration ran the OS like c***. I knew so many people who thought their machines were slow until they spent $50 on RAM. Lo and behold, that crappy mac became a very useable machine.

Apple is stupid regarding their upgrade pricing, and they always have been. Even if they were just 25% over dell's prices, i wouldn't have a problem. As other posters have noted, if you go to buy a mac, NEVER buy hard drives or RAM from apple. You're paying double or triple what it costs.

To the first guest who posted here, are you that much of a fanboy that you can't see when your best bud Apple is ripping you off?

'You get what you pay for. If you don't like the way Apple prices their products, buy a Dell. Oh wait, it's a Windows platform. Never mind.'

First of all, I like both Apple and other PC products equally. You use a computer OS based on your needs and personal preferences. It's people like you who give Mac users a bad elitist rep.

Furthermore, there's no such thing as 'Apple' RAM -- all RAM is built to run at a set specification. The last time I checked, Apple doesn't produce its own RAM. Saying Apple does that is like saying Dell produces its own motherboards.

One of my previous laptops from Apple was an iBook G4. It couldn't detect the hard drive on boot so I took it over to the AppleCenter I bought it from and opened it up. Low and behold, did I see an 'Apple' hard drive or a 40GB 5400rpm Hitachi? <_>

It's just plain re-branding and hiking up the price in the case of the system hardware. Then again, you'd probably buy a basic pencil from Apple if they put their label on it and sold it for 50USD wouldn't you?