My middle school social studies teacher frequently gave me a hard time for not living up to my potential. "Not firing on all cylinders" was how he phrased it. Today's storage buses are in the same situation. Or are they?
During construction of my last system I agonized over the fact that the Western Digital Raptor drives (10K RPM, 4.6ms seek time) were only SATA-150 and not SATA-300. as a friend pointed out to me, the concern was moot. There was no way the drive could saturate the SATA-150 pipe let alone a 300 pipe. The faster seek times would more than anything else set the winner apart.
Yet system builders continue to clamor for a SATA-300 Raptor. Why? Is it the planning for future expansion? I think it is more to due with the goal of eliminating as many bottlenecks as possible. I know I have felt the frustration at being hamstrung by a certain bus or interface, so it is clearly a case where emotion can trump reason.