> A sub-2005 level computer for 2012+ market costing $3,000+
> shouldn't even have gotten to the drawing table!

Let's not forget that when it went to the drawing table no later than 2009, it was still planned for 2010 market and probably for a lower price than $3,000 as well (as a longer development process means more expensive development in total) ;-) However, the one thing of those three aspects they could have known beforehand for sure is the PA6T's performance level, as they could have benchmarked it on a PA6T eval board running Linux in the Varisys lab. But then, maybe they did and were satisfied with the results :-)