I started realising this last year at the ripe old age of 20.
Sure, there's a bigger upfront cost. But you'll quickly save money once you realise you'd end up buying the expensive widget two years down the line anyway out of frustration.
It's more the time saving than the dollar saving I'm interested in these days. I regularly have this argument with people about media PCs. I don't touch the AppleTV, just hit play. It's been reliable for 3 years. Sure, their systems are amazing, but they take about a day of maintenance every 3 months to keep functional.
Buy the tool you need the moment you need it. And I get to have shiny new tools this way.
Actually, a media PC is the one time where it's ok to tinker around and build something esoteric. Sure, you might need to fix it every three months, but who really needs a media centre? The worst that happens is that you have to watch TV on your computer instead.
As long as you are the only one in your house that watches movies - or everyone who does is just as much of a geek. If you have less technophilic spouse or children, you want it to work, and to be easy to operate. Otherwise you will have to operate it for them and fix it promptly every time it breaks.
I would just suggest you look at Plex. I feel the same way after being burned out on HTPC projects. But the killer feature still missing on Appletv is streaming media files stored elsewhere on the network, which Plex does beautifully. And still manages to have a gorgeous UI (using Google TV version)
