That's exactly right. Just because it works well for some, it's can become a disaster for others. Not everyone is adept at cracking open the Mini without scratching the case, let alone doing the upgrade right without damaging other components. As I said before, the money saved is not the motherload many here would have you believe.
After being trashed by so many upgrade loyalists here, I'm surprised my thread is still alive.
If you have the skills, patience, awareness, and know how, the savings is significant. The only time it's not is when someone screws something up carelessly, and trust me from experience, it would have to be a careless mistake. No one claimed you're saving a mother-load, but the savings is significant, and gets you a significant performance upgrade not available from Apple.
People usually come to forums to get help with problems, caused by themselves or otherwise. The people who were successful are far less likely to come back and sing it's praises. So the few instances you have been able to quote as being negative are almost positively the small majority. Yet you come back trying knock something in which you know nothing about, trying to convince anyone reading this thread that it's not worth it when you haven't even attempted it.
And as mentioned before, if those on the fence are not comfortable doing it yourself, buy the parts and have an authorized Apple service center do it for you for $60-100. The local guy here will charge $80 for 30 min worth of work. So you get your upgrade for less than Apple is charging, you still have your warranty, and you get an upgrade that isn't available from Apple (assuming you go with a 7200 RPM HDD).
For the folks who are comfortable working on their previous PCs or Laptops (PC or Mac) and understand the risks of magnetism and ESD and have prepared for them: DO THE UPGRADE. The hardest part is separating the cover from the base.
Apple upgrade to 4GB of Ram and 320GB 5400 RPM drive is
$325.00 + Local applicable sales tax.
Buy parts and have ASC do it:
320 GB 7200 =
$80 shipped (and most likely no tax depending on the online retailer. I chose Newegg)
4GB DDR3 1066
$60 Shipped
ASC to install
$100.00
Total $240.00 a savings of
at least $85 USD and better performance.
Buy parts and do it all yourself: Save
at least $165.00 and better performance.
So, IMO the last thing anyone should do is pay Apple to do it.
My neighbor has been checking out my mini and decided to buy one last week. She ordered the RAM and larger HDD and had a local Apple certified tech install it for $80 (believe it or not, my suggestion). My machine has the same memory in it, but I still have stock HDD. I was surprised at how much of a difference the 7.2K RPM drive made. Loads apps and large files quicker, boots a little faster, and doesn't seem any louder. The temp did go up about 5 deg. C but still all is well 24 hours later.
