(Also, not everyone can throw money away! The US tech market is an aberration compared to the rest of the world.)
When I am hiring engineers, I nearly always hire the ones who built their own setups out of crappy old hardware, just to learn how it works and build something cool. Those guys are in it for the love and will work all hours to get something working. The ones who wont work on anything but the latest apple hardware are invariably the awkward ones in the team who demand to be treated in a certain way, and are disliked by everybody else for being picky and looking down their nose at everybody.
Not saying this is a hard and fast stereotype which fits all, but my experience of hiring IT engineers in the UK has shown me this is often the case, and my teams are more productive and happier after weeding those guys out.