It's often a matter of a company's size. In the mid-90s I worked at a software/hardware company that had a team that did nothing but read the AOL forums for our products and at my last job we had a person who did nothing but read the company owned support web site. Our problems were usually ones that the online reps couldn't fix, they could only file bugs.

With a shop as small as IH you don't really have a customer support group, but the person reading the forum might be able to actually fix a problem or point someone to a good web site. The problem is that one of us has already purchased a machine, what else will we buy other than upgrades and repair parts? (I just upgraded my spindle and was very happy with how quickly that worked out, but I probably won't buy a third one any time soon.)

Putting on my bizdev hat for a second, I think this is where Tormach makes it's money. It's like a Barbie doll, you can't just buy Barbie, you gotta get the house, the car, the tourist playset, all the clothes, etc etc etc. Many of us IH people are making our on accessories but Tormach is pushing a lot of turn-key upgrades. Hell, they had me looking at their ATC option and wondering how I could fit it to my IH mill.