At this point I don't think the frustration has much to do with the performance but rather RAM is so cheap that intentionally creating a bottleneck to extract another $150 from a customer comes across as greedy, and I am inclined to agree. Maybe the shared memory makes things more expensive but the upgrade cost has always been around the same amount.

It's not quite in the same ballpark as showing apartment or airfare listings without mandatory fees but it is at the ticket booth outside of the stadium.