It is still fun watch this switch go around the proverbial track, but I'm happy knowing that I'll never have to configure, build and test a switch of this complexity unless I really absolutely have to, with my largest caveat being AWS disappearing from the face of the earth.
I currently work in the network hardware industry (think Cisco, Juniper, etc). Our boxes sell in the 6-figure price range, each [1]. We sell to your ISP, wireless carrier, datacenter constructor. We're the competition this kind of box is aiming at.
[1] it's highly specific hardware and software for a low-volume market. Individual chips used in the hardware can cost multiple thousands of dollars each.
and 10 years ago, the compute power of a QC i7 would have tens of thousands of dollars.
It's kind of stupid to say that today's general-purpose hardware can do what yesterday's special hardware could do at a faction of the cost, because the specialist market has also moved on and wants the performance of today's special hardware.
And N years after that you get that functionality for free along with your new TV.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandwidth_Digital_Content_...
Though, 30 years ago, in Neuromancer, William Gibson wrote about the city of Los Angeles transferring megabytes (yes, whole megabytes) of data each second, so he probably couldn't have imagined what someone would do with the gigabit switch on my desk.