Why is my Late 2006 iMac arbitrarily excluded from the Macs allowed to run Mavericks?

Question

To install Mavericks, you need one of these Macs:
iMac (Mid-2007 or later)
MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later),
MacBook Pro (15-inch or 17-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
Mac mini (Early 2009 or later)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
Xserve (Early 2009)
Your Mac also needs:
OS X Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard v10.6.8 already installed
2 GB or more of memory
8 GB or more of available space
My Mac:
has a 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
Is currently running OS X Lion
has 3 GB memory
has a 250 GB hard drive (most of which is empty)
was built in Late 2006
Why is my Late 2006 iMac arbitrarily excluded from the list of Macs allowed to run Mavericks?
I called 1-800-MY-APPLE to find out what change was made in 2007 that was not present the year before. No one had an answer for me, they just shuffled me around to different departments while I listened to the same lame songs repeat over and over again.
On hold 1:01:55
Don't need to walk around in circles
Walk around in circles, walk around in circles
Walk around in
Doom da doom da doom
What I'm doing, I'm doing
Doom da doom da doom
What I'm doing, I'm doing
(The phone hold system at Apple should really get an iPod.)
I eventually spoke with CPU Senior Advisor, J.T. Thornton, and I asked him to explain which mandatory feature was added to the 2007 iMacs that wasn’t present in the 2006 models. He pulled up the technical specifications of the 2006 iMac next to the 2007 iMac, and even he was unable to identify what changed in 2007 that would cause the incompatibility. He went on to explain that it was probably an algorithm that caused my Mac to be incompatible.
I asked (somewhat facetiously) if the algorithm was if build year<2007 then FAIL, and then to my surprise, he agreed with me.
Why isn't there a smarter algorithm to determine compatibility? I can clearly see that my system exceeds the minimum system requirements, with the exception being, of course, the year it was built.
Planned obsolescence, anyone?

Answer 1

all-in-one-obsolescence wrote:
My machine works every bit as well as it did when it was new, and my computing needs have not changed enough to justify buying a whole new computer.
Then you do not need to upgrade.
But if you do remember that your needs may not have changed, but technology has. 32 bit machines are vintage now, they will not run moderns operating systems. So unless Mavericks has something that you must have don't upgrade. And if you do, a new Mac will be needed.
$1199 divided by 8 years is a cost of about $3 a week, a pretty good rate for a machine that works as well as it did 8 years ago.