I'm a newbie and I totally agree with you. For what it's worth, here is my theory on "the cake is not a lie." There are 2 Chinese restaurants in the Hampton Roads Virginia area called Hibachi Grill and Supreme Buffet. One is in Virginia Beach the other in Newport News. The VA Beach restaurant started out charging $8.99 and was packed every time my wife and I went there. Then they pushed the price to $10.99 and guess what, business slowed down considerably. In contrast, the Newport News restaurant started out at $8.99 and ACTUALLY dropped the price to $6.99 and guess what, business is tremendous EVERY day of the week. The point is would you rather have your restaurant busy EVERY day by offering a lower price while still making a good profit or would you rather have it empty half the week and only be really busy on the weekends and barely make a profit? With the lower price you have the best of both worlds for the business and the customer. So what does this have to do with EEs and PEs. Well, the PE started out at $400 and maybe weren't moving so fast. The price dropped to $199 and it is flying off the shelves. Maybe Entourage figured it was better to sell 2 PEs for $400 and still make somewhat of a profit rather then selling NONE at all for $400 and making NO profit. Plus, the longer they sit on the shelf the harder it is to turn a profit, especially when it comes to electronics which is practically outdated the day you buy it. Maybe Entourage is concentrating their efforts into a smaller more compact machine which is what consumers seem to want. A final thought on maximizing value in a business sale: price isn’t everything. Sometimes taking a lower price on better terms can be smart. Better terms can mean less post-sale risk, less post-sale taxes, and less post-sale stress while still maintaining a profit margin. All this talk about cake and Chinese food has made me hungry ...