What in the hell are you talking about? Hundreds or thousands of dollars? I don't think I've spent more than $50 on an intact cab, ever. I suppose an idiot who spends $1000 on a horribly "restored" Ms. Pacman doesn't know how a soldering iron or a ROM programmer work either...

I don't see any appeal to new games... It's about nostalgia, not about some Xbox Live indie store clone...

Billy, is it as heart breaking for you to see someone butchering classic games that, with a little effort, could easily be restored, for the sake of some assclown hacking together a glorified Bally/Midway 60 in 1 with a bag of Skittles dumped on the control panel?

As an amateur operator, with only about 100 or so games, the claim that the classic arcade era is dead, is a grave mistake. Barcade is wildly successful all over the country, and Arcade "museums" are as popular as ever. Perhaps the days of getting burned by an older kid being careless with his cigarette in a jam packed mall arcade are finished, but that's no real great loss.