j2button, I agree with your specs, the specs given by Microsoft are those needed to run windows, but of course we all want to run other programmes as well, play music, play with pictures, spreadsheets, write a letter to granny etc.
I was in PC world the other day and a friend of mine purchased a mid range PC for �399.00. My first PC I bought in 1996 had 8 megs of ram I had to upgrade it to 16 megs the following week, a less than half a gig HD, was second hand with win95 on it, I paid �750.00 and that was a good deal at the time. lol