uh...I'm waiting for the 24 port to go on sale.

It would be nice if someone would integrate a lot of the toys we have in thumb or dongle form into the same casing to reduce desktop clutter. I'd love a single small casing with all the following in it.

Front mounted, widely spaced USB ports
Front mounted CF, SD/miniSD/microSD, et al flash memory slots
Bluetooth integral
Wifi 11g network adapter w/access point ability
IR remote control receiver
Two USB2 links (cables) to the system to provide double bandwidth

Optional - USB sound card and video tuner capture input
Optional - USB analog joystick adapter
Optional - 2 x AA & 2 x AAA NiMH battery charger

The problem is something with all these integral should cost less than buying all separately but would instead end up costing more.

Then someone should figure out how to get all those components into the actual computer case itself, and then we'll have some progress. Dave C., I like the way you think. Is "visionary" the right word?

There's a reason they're called "peripherals".

Integrate them all and when one goes flooey or you want to upgrade one, you get to upgrade them all. Yippie.

yea, i think modulality is more important than integration. then you can customize.

If it were some $200 peripheral, yeah it would seem like a loss. We don't have that problem though, if the casing is small what does it matter if you had to upgrade at some point in the future? If you no longer use 11n wifi, it's not a problem you can always disable that. Don't need a CF slot? Fine, don't use it.

Similar applies to motherboards, would you rather they had no integrated features and you needed an add-on card to even support USB or PS2? More features > fewer, so long as they don't come at a cost premium and they really shouldn't beyond advanced ones like video capture.

I don't want these things integrated into the case itself because I don't even put my case on the desk. The point was having all IO you need besides the power switch up where they're accessible on the desk, without taking up more than a few square inches of space.

Yes you would only appeal to a niche market with a card such as this. The more you include, the fewer people who will buy it.
What I would love to see is less monstrous size transformers that require 2 or 3 spots on your power strip. I have some solutions but they cost extra and/or take up extra space. I am mainly speaking of hooking in external drives. My best answer for now is buy larger capacity drives to decrease the footprint needed to store and access my library of media files.

#8 I have these but then you need to attach a fan cooler to the bare drive if you will have it on for any length of time to keep heat down. I have 4 sets of fans and about 4 SATA/IDE converters to USB also. Been through the gammit.

#9 I already have several strips with more space for adapters but that still does not decrease the space for all the external drives themselves. Fewer # of drives will be better

#7, Ok Gear has these gems for externals....

http://www.svc.com/ok301.html;_ylc=X1MDMjAyMjI3NjA5OQRfcgMyBGJ0A3Byb2QtY2xpY2sEZHN0aQNvazMwMQRpbkFycmF5AwRzaQNzdmNvbXB1Y3ljbGUEc3JjaQNvazMwMgR2X21uA3JQcm9kQWZmBHZfb3JkAzMEdl9yaWQDNV9tdWRfMTY2MjM2MDA4NQR2X3NuA3N0b3Jlcy5wcm9kdWN0cmVjb3M-

#7, maybe you just need a different power strip with more space between the plugs. cheaper than new hard drives.

This is a great price for a pretty "Christmas tree hub" but the one blinking light can drive you crazy.

When you get it, crack open the case, take a pliars to the one blinking light and this will be a much nicer hub. It closes back up nicely.

I think #7 you would have to go with an Infrant external enclosure.
I have a friend with 2TB in one of these for his music (vinyl to lossless FLAC) with redundancy.
What I end up doing is keeping a stack of drives in a custom made box (AKA Shoe Rack) so there's decent passive air cooling around the external drives, and keeping a google spreadsheet with what data resides on what drive.
when I want to watch a movie that drive gets flipped on.

Power is via those powersquid strips (amazon has them on sale atm)

When designing your solution keep in mind the data availability, space, cooling (can't stress this enough) and physical access constraints. I've seen people forget this and hide 3 external drives behind a drywall only to have a drive die and no way to fish it out.

currently not available