Re: Some truth about investment and growth
Touché. 
Well, that purchase was a bit of a fluke. Certainly not a typical "club mixer".
For my operation it was time to get a mixer with more facilities than our SeriesTWO to accomodate the "big shows" (for us that would be 500-700ish people) and something like an MH3 with all the goodies was in the running when that PM1D appeared at the right price. Turns out it was a good choice for many reasons to buy the big digital instead.
This is an entirely different discussion, but "gear hysteria" has gone slightly overboard here and you'd be surprised at what kinds of small clubs have something like an MH3...
I'm going to say that there are several other differences, also.
Here's one example: A number one consideration for me when considering speakers (we are all self-powered at the moment) is "scaleability".
Right now, our "big" PA can be split into many small systems. We can use the wedges from the big setup as frontfill/delay or as mains for smaller systems together with subs "stolen" from the big PA. The subs from the big PA even work as drumfill subs together with one of the wedges, etc, etc.
The "big name rider friendly big show gear" typically isn't made like this - for a good reason (a Ferrari doesn't have a trailer hitch, either 
~:-D~:grin.
My level of gear excludes us from bidding on the "Ferrari-shows" but it makes up for it (for me) by making it easier to make a few dollars off of the "Ford/VW/Nissan/Toyota-shows" (why do we always end up with cars?).
Not knowing the state of that rig (and not really wanting to discuss that one purchase in particular) all I am meaning to say is that sometimes when it's time to get a new company van, getting one that does exactly what the last one does, could make sense. If the old one did the job, but was getting unreliable/too thirsty/cumbersome/etc, the change might still be perfectly worthwhile (again with the cars).
All I can say is that even when I was just a kid with some old Peavey gear in an unheated shack, I actually had insurance (I guess I was just taught that way).
As my business has grown, so have the overheads, but that's OK, the growth has been fueled by an increased amount of available gigs, not the other way around. The "next level" is such a big step up that I don't find it worthwhile, besides, I really like the work I have now (lucky guy, I guess) For now I think I'll stay within the environment I have tuned my machinery to operate well in (and this is what I'd suggest the line-array purchaser in the other thread considers, too).
