> you would have to try to convince OS and driver developers

As far as I understand, the components selection was also driven by their state of Linux driver support. And GNU/Linux is the OS this laptop is primarily aimed at.

> The enormous amounts of cash needed to be paid up-front
> *months* ahead of production start for components etc. [...]
> It would be humongous [...]. [...] building HW is the [...] cheap
> and easy part of the equation after all.

;-)