A 90 GB database fits in a single $150 SSD. You can get 1 TB of SSD storage for $3,000.
"One EC2 Compute Unit provides the equivalent CPU capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor. This is also the equivalent to an early-2006 1.7 GHz Xeon processor referenced in our original documentation. " [1]
You can get a 6 core AMD Phenom II which runs at 3.2Ghz. for $180.
16GB of RAM will set you back $400.
From the sounds of what they went through, spending $10k on decent hardware might have saved them a man year or two of developer time.
Granted that's not nearly as fun or sexy as trying to use MongoDB, Cassandra or HBase in production. And, saying that you're going to use actual hardware is soooo old school.
ref: [1] http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/faqs/#What_is_an_EC2_Compute_Unit_...