Sell The Dream, Or Make It Painless?

I'm considering buying a home automation/distributed media system for my new house. Nothing fancy, but something that will let us listen to music in various parts of the house, maybe control some of the lights from a central location, and so on.

Researching my options, it seems that most suppliers really focus on a "sell the dream" approach. They showcase the ultimate system, featuring drool-worthy photos and descriptions of amazing, futuristic homes. As much as this makes me want one even more, it also has the opposite effect of scaring me away. There's no way I can afford a powerful mega-system. My rational side starts immediately thinking of reasons not to buy: I'm not really going to use it that much... it's not really hard to manually turn on the lights... I could buy a separate stereo system for each room for the same price...

Even the suppliers that emphasize the affordability of their offerings still position them as a luxury item.

Perhaps some of them would be wise to focus on entry-level consumers and realize that most of us probably won't just jump in to the full-meal-deal. Concentrate on communicating some bite-size pieces that anybody with a decent job could (and should! darnit) buy today. They can always up-sell us later in the process, of course.