What's the most you'd pay for the ultimate HTPC?

Ben Drawbaugh at EngadgetHD asks an interesting question “What’s the most you’d pay for the ultimate HTPC?”, he has put up a vote page for you to have your say.

The wide range of computers that can pull duty as a HTPC varies wildly from $500 all the way up to $25,000, but at what point are you getting the best money can buy, or just throwing money away? Many in these parts like to role there own, while others spend the big bucks on the latest Nievus system. So we're asking, what's the most you'd pay for the ultimate HTPC? We're not talking about the whole setup here, just the main unit, so digital cable tuners would be included, but not media streamers like Microsoft's Extenders. What we really want to know is, assuming these high dollar systems do actually offer the best possible solution, are they even worth it at their high price?

Would you pay less than £500, $3000 or go all out and have no limit. You can vote HERE, for me I would say under $1000 $2000 (EDIT I was thinking in £ and not $) would get you a good system to build on top of with Extenders