Variety of hardware has allways been an issue in ht PC-gaming. Wishing for standardized hardware isn't even a very new wish.

With todays colorful range of choises in graphics adapters and processors the common users can't be certain of if the new game they buy will run smoothly in their system, The game might run, but the graphics might be forced to be set in the lower resolution or the game just runs choppy.

There really ins't a realistic way the standardization could be effectively be done with drivers or API's, when the hardware is so varied. The manufactirers would have to build almost identical stuff and there's no change of that happenig any time soon.

This is a Gawker Media site we're talking about here. The same guys behind Gizmodo, the same guys who think it's perfectly okay to do incredibly douchy things like their TV-B-Gone prank at CES, or their ridiculous iPhone 4 "scoop". They're right up there with Michael Arrington in terms of ethical standards.

I think TB nailed it when he called the article plain and simple "nerdbaiting" (I'd just call it trolling). Same sort of stunts that people like Rob Enderle pulled when they wrote things like how Apple could never succeed with the iPhone. They're not stupid. They write factually wrong pieces and publish them, knowing that they are factually wrong and reap the ad revenues. For the most part, I've decided to boycott Gawker Media's sites because I don't want them profiting off of my clicks.

Macs are not gaming computers. They were never meant to be gaming computers. I don't think even the most hardened Mac fanboi would argue that a Mac is a better gaming platform.

In my opinion there are only a few upgrades that are economical for the general user and this is probably some more RAM and maybe more disk space.
Because there always comes out faster hardware so fast and the price drop it usually isn't economic to change some single core component like the mainboard, cpu, video card unless u have something with a significant single bottleneck. In this case you just bought something that didn't fits your needs.
Buy just swapping out single components u just shove the bottleneck from one point to another in many cases.
And for the masses you can do all you want with a cheap system and even play the newest games on high settings unless u didn't get impressed by high numbers and end up with something like a cripple video card or similiar.
And for me there is no point in making a component like a cpu or video card as robust as a Game cartridge. Hell these components get handled usually one single time. So i want the price to go fully into features like low power consumption, high performance, as cheap as possible.
Just check in the future what you get for your money when you compare an internal video card with an external Thunderbolt video card.. write me a PM, when you have bought the external one for double the prize and half the performance just because it is "save to handle".
In this matter like everywhere else you should just apply the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_triangle , inform yourself and then make the right choice.

Oh there are plenty of Mac owners who say they bought them to game on many fell into the trap of more expensive=better hardware... I've had a few people ask me why their shiny new game doesn't work on their mac -.-

I know full well who they are, but that doesn't mean they never had any gaming news on there worth reading... well, maybe not worth reading as much as worth checking out the source links. Articles like this one are, as you said, simple trolling and there has been far too much of that from them lately. I already get plenty of that kind of crap on the forums I visit.

At that point we have just added a layer of planet killing , heat retaining plastic around something just to make it less scary for a handful of people that probably "know a guy." Few system builders are going to see any point to it and the people that do may very well have crossed that line into people that probably shouldn't be doing it. Which I hate to say since that could be construed as being at odds with something I said earlier, but If someone is too afraid about what is happening on the inside of a case then how is that person going to really be able to understand what upgrade he needs? Identifying an annoying bottleneck in a system can take a certain level of computer savvy that one would expect to transcend the fear of handling a stick of RAM and one thing we don't want is people buying a RAM cart and not understanding why they can't copy files faster from their digital camera, or buying a new video cart and not understanding why their web-surfing isn't faster.

About the standardization of PC (gaming) hardware, it wouldn't be the first time such forced standardization has taken place. I remember at least the following:

1. MSX was supposed to be the hardware standard for home computers in the 80s. I think even Microsoft was backing up that enterprise. Many (mainly Japanese?) companies did make MSX-compatible home computers, and I think it was at least a bit successful on Japan at least.

Yet, "MSX standard" was unable to supersede Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Apple IIc, the emerging PC gaming etc.

2. 3DO was similarly supposed to be the new standard for gaming consoles, provided by many (again mostly Japanese?) companies. I guess it also had mild success, but couldn't really compete with the new proprietary consoles like Sony Playstation or Sega Saturn. Maybe it would have had a chance against Atari Jaguar. :)

Thus, I don't see how a forced "PC HW standard" would have any better chance, most probably it would be similarly outdated already when the first version comes out. The current way how the consumers and the market has decided where the PC "de facto standard" has evolved has proved to have much more vitality and longevity.

And if the DirectX really became a too big impediment for PC's evolution, I'm pretty sure it will be replaced by some better third-party solution. Apparently OpenGL wasn't quite enough considering Direct3D could still supersede it.

I didn't say they were, that's my whole point. If you standardize the pc platform it's likely to result in over-priced, underpowered machines and overpriced games.

Game developers play a large role in driving HW upgrades. Imagine if the people who made Witcher2 or Crysis2 said that they wanted to make a games that will run on pre-made standard laptops. Fewer gamers will run out and upgrade their HW for sure.

For a small few PC gamers this is true. Honestly most PC gamers buy what amounts to commodity hardware with whatever 150 bucks gets you for a graphics card at the time. Very few people ran Crysis at full tilt when it came out and I'd bet a very small percentage of TW2 buyers have had the opportunity to turn it up to full yet.