Yeah, computers are getting faster and faster, and cheaper and cheaper, but games requirements are going up faster than affordable hardware can keep up.
Absolutely wrong on that point. My half decent PC can run all Direct X 10 title comfortably, and I don't even have a Core 2 Duo.
The latest crop of graphics cards are reasonably priced. Take for example the 8800GTS 512 mb that I bought in April for 320$ CDN. That same card is now priced in the 250$ CDN range (3 months later), and the newer generation graphics cards are comming up this month, ranging from 300 to 500 $ CDN, and we're talking high end, latest technology. Nvidia revised their price on their latest graphics cards 150$ to 200$ lower, and competition is hard with ATI.
Same with CPUs, since you can get an excellent CPU for roughly 100$. 4 gigs of DDR3 can be had for around 150$. Motherboard prices are steady in price, but have more and more features (RAID is now common place, 8 or 10 USB ports, 4 or 6 SATA devices, 6.1 Audio, onboard Lan controller, WIFI, Firewire, etc etc...)
Reason for this, of course is to keep up with the technology and keep up with the console prices as well and the new game requirements.
But no, you do not need 3000$ to get a GREAT PC.
Another example; I bought two 750 GB hard drives for 115$ CDN each (tax + shipping included)...