"I do wish they went with some sort of SSD instead of using SD cards. SD Cards are notoriously unreliable when abruptly shutting down the computer, and this happens frequently with a PC. You can get 120GB SSD for around $20, it should have at least been an option. The performance difference with an SSD on a Pi over SD is huge."

I am not sure what you mean, I think one could just buy a SSD extern harddisk and set the bias to boot from it, then you would avoid the SD card, am I right?