Ah, then you may not have been getting the best advice. What you said is good for *rich* guys.
For us regular folk, you begin to realize that the next best or even next next best level of device is usually much more than enough for our purposes, even hard gaming, and should last in terms of utility for years.
For example, for a machine I am planning for a younger kid, I'm not looking for PC-3500 RAM or any of that fast OC'd stuff; PC-2700 is good enough! (Of course, you might want something a little better, seeing as how you're not a kid, like PC-3200 or whatever.)