What took you so long to presenting an actual argument? The reason I replied to your dubious claim at best, "In other words, you are paying for the brand, not the product" is because you offered no proof or evidence, you just made some random accusation.
How do you separate what profits are due to the successful product and those which are due to the brand? AdAge did say Apple is the most valuable consumer brand, but I'm pretty sure you weren't referring to that. You're saying any % more that Apple makes over x, x being the industry standard is due to Apple's brand, but Apple's products are commodities so it's not a fair comparison. Apple's OS/UI is usually where the added value comes from. It's a virtuous cycle, Apple makes good products, people trust them, so they can charge more than say Acer who doesn't have the same track record.
I'm not a fanboy, I use a Dell and a Blackberry, maybe you should stop making assumptions. I just prefer to have discussions, not flame wars, which is what you tried to instigate in your initial comment.