Are Aperture's stringent hardware requirements: a poor management decision?

Question

I'm very surprised at the management decision to put a hard software block on even relatively new systems. I understand that optimal performance is a combination of processor, speed, RAM & graphics; however, it appears that Apple has chosen a much narrower set of requirements than need be. There are many claims on the web of folks getting Aperture to work acceptably well on unsupported hardware.
Politically and business-wise, it would have made much more sense to issue a "warning" to the user during the install that there system did not meet the minimum hardware requirements and they would not be eligible for technical support. This would increase the initial sales base, but not put an undue burden on technical support.
Perhaps, Apple is trying to push users to upgrade to newer hardware. However, I'm afraid they'll just push folks to find alternative software / hardware. This is something I would expect from Microsoft, not Apple.
The stringent hardware requirements block was a bad project management decision and one that I hope Apple reconsiders.
Am I the only one feeling this way?
dual G4 FW800 & dual G5 2.0   Mac OS X (10.4.3)  

Answer 1

Look at FCP,
doesn't use any core image or core video
functionally
uses BASIC AGP to do the full screen video function
And it works.
motion,
yes Motion uses Core Video mainly and limited Core
Image and if you have seen it run on a 5200 or a 9600
it is dog slow
my DP 1.25 G4 with a 9800 SMOKES a DP 2 G5 with a
5200 or 9600 wih functions that the GPU uses
I titled a dvd project with it a year ago using my 1Ghz, 1.25Gbyte, powerbook 12". It worked. In fact, I produced the entire dvd using FCP, motion, livetype, and dvd studio pro on that powerbook. It wasn't blazing fast, but it was possible.
look at any of the analogue synth emulators or real
time sound processors.
what does Core Audio have to do with the GPU?
That's rather the point. I want my computer to be a general purpose machine. I don't want to have to pay $5k for an aperture horse and another $5k for an FCP horse and another $5k for another computer to run motion and another $5k to run iWork. I want my software to run on one, general purpose computer. If apple's going to require me to buy specialized, potentially incompatible hardware for each application, I'll find another vendor.
A software architecture that exploits an available gpu is fine, great, even. But a software architecture that requires a specific piece of hardware, (which may easily be incompatible with another software's hardware requirements), is a gross mistake, imo.
The frustrating part is that the horsepower we need already exists. But it's not being exploited.