bluejay

It's useful for just two things: machine language programming and documentation.

In the 70s it was too expensive and complicated.

By the 80s it had outdated graphics and sound.

It's big and heavy and bulky and doesn't have much useful software compared to other systems of the early-mid 80s. I'd rather play games on a Commodore computer and run business software on a CP/M machine.

I'm really trying to love Apple, I really am. And I love Woz too. Great bloke. But his brilliant ways to exploit the limited hardware as much as possible also makes things a hell lot more complicated to deal with.

It's also expensive as hell.

I know there are aftermarket add ons that you can buy to make your Apple II better, but I'd much rather spend my money souping up a PC than an Apple II. A PC can be expanded to a much greater computer while still retaining software support. Tons of games support the Soundblaster, but how many games support the Mockingboard? Also there's no upgrade that I know of that would improves upon the Apple II's horrible graphics, and even if there was I don't imagine there would be tons of software that supports it at all.

All in all, I think it sucks because there's next no practical appeal to it, especially compared to other machines of the era. I would totally understand if someone loves Apple II computers. Emotional appeal is a huge factor when it comes to these computers, since you seem to be highly nostalgic for the Apple II computers, and many other people are as well. However, I have no nostalgia for any computer, so I'm given a chance to look at all computers in a fair manner. The only impractical computer so far that I've fallen in love with is the VIC-20, and I hope that's understandable since it was my first vintage computer that taught me how to program in BASIC and whatnot.

TL;DR There are just too many computers that are better than the Apple II.

The magic of the Apple II happened because the system was such a blank slate. Programmers had to make their own environment with sound and graphics routines, very little or nothing was provided. No hardware assist was available anywhere. And results were directly proportional to a developers abilities. A reflection on who they were.

There were 3 graphics boards available at the time. The Arcade Board, The Sprite Board, and SecondSight. The first 2 used a Texas Instruments graphics chip. SecondSight used a real PC VGA chip and output in PC resolutions.

Today there is another VGA/RGB output board, but much more appropriately priced.

A stealth graphics board in the form of the Video Overlay Card was also available from Apple Co themselves. IMHO it came way too late in the system's timeline to have any beneficial effect. It was FPGA based and could do crazy wild stuff not even an Amiga could think about.

Of course nothing tops a PC, especially once you get into the 486 and Pentium eras.

@bluejay: I think you should consider starting a blog for your long-form writing.  The status updates are more ephemeral, and they disappear off the front page after a short time, while a blog is better suited for extended conversations.  (Plus, as I've said previously, long updates like this add a lot of clutter.)