The thing is that consumers (clearly) don’t care about that stuff. There is no such thing as “overpriced” as long as the item is selling. Consumers determine the price of something based on the single factor of “what they are willing to pay”. If Apple can sell devices at that price, and consumers are willing to pay it, then it is by definition not overpriced.
Opennes is also overvalued for techies. While I am on the side of openness myself, the vast majority of consumers don’t care about it. They only care about the value they are getting from the product. There might be a few people who really want to crack open the case, but they do not have any significant presence in the market.
What consumers do care about is feeling good about their purchase, and the Apple of the 1990s had so many products and was so unfocused that none of the products were good, and consumers felt bad when they bought them.
The SKU problem is the same as today. Now you have half a dozen iPads to choose from, and a number of laptops that all seem to be the same except for half an inch between models. No matter what you pick, you leave the store with a sense of FOMO, not knowing if you really picked the right model. That is really what Steve did — you went in and bought the only option they gave you, and you felt confident you got the right one.