A little postscriptum on NeXT: let's be realistic here. NeXT's problem wasn't some kind of metaphysical over-success in branding: its problem was that regardless of whether you wanted to sell your children for it, at $7,000 per station you'd HAVE to, and it shipped so late that by the time you even had the option, your children had grown up to the point where they might stand a chance of physically resisting.

Even Steve Jobs at the height of his cocaine days could not convince more than a handful of people that they wanted to pay $7,000 for a computer with no applications. The NeXT wasn't the too-good-to-succeed predecessor of the iMac, it was the too-cool-for-school son of the Lisa.