JasonR said: "I took his post to be agreeing that there is nothing beneficial about this situation, i.e., he was agreeing with us."
I definitely was agreeing with you. It's a race to the bottom if you're not connecting customer needs to features or are not providing solutions to their problems.
In this economy, however, it's effective to a lot of mom & pop establishments because they have only the most basic of needs. At least that's the case here in the Southern Appalachians!