There is nothing to feign about when it comes to this gear. Crestron's new product is at a price point that cannot be justified by its feature set or performance. While I cannot disagree that Crestron products are largely designed to answer the needs of custom installers the fact is that the features of the newly introduced product are not competitive with offerings from other firms that also incorporate features for whole house audio / boardroom presentation type installations.

In addition to the aforementioned products from Integra that come with features like HDBaseT for sending AV signals and control info over standard ethernet cables -- http://www.soundandvision.com/content/integra-dhc-605-network-av-controller at an MSRP of $2000 there are also products from the ES division of Sony that have on-board Control4 integration at a similar price -- http://www.in-homeautomation.com/store/sony-str-da5800es-with-full-control4-automation.html

This is not "pro gear" in anything other than price and one would have to be extremely naive to not understand that products marketed in a way that encourages deceptive practices are a bad direction for the overall industry. Even when it comes to ultra-pricey gear from specialty firms it would be hard to argue such things are not intended for use in "normal" homes -- http://www.thetadigital.co/casablanca_iv_controller_info.shtml though at least firms like ATI/Theta are a bit more honest in targeting their appeal / value to the wise but still "luxury" buyer. To play with the analogy of lawncare it is clear that some firms really do have the oomph to deliver superior results while other firms are marketing products with similar price tags but lacking in performance --

http://www.scag.com/lawnstriping.html vs http://www.mowersdirect.com/Craftsman-37488-Lawn-Mower/p11073.html