Pricey, what do they offer in terms of real-world savings? $990 for a house fan is going to be a steep hill to climb in the Lowes/Home Depot retail space.

Explain how windows media player isn't enough to play music? Oh, and don't forget to include the reason it increases your productivity and either makes the company revenue, or saves them cost. If something like PDF converter is a usefull tool to you, why not propose it up the management chain as a STANDARD install on all desktops.

It sounds like you want to use a business PC as a personal PC. I understand the need to feel comfortable in a work environment, but you have obviously never had to work in an IT support environment. Standard PC builds are much easier to troubleshoot and support than having 100 desktops/laptops that are "almost" standard, except for the 100 odd programs randomly installed all over the network.

If you really need something to be productive, no management or IT chain is going to limit you, unless you've been a PITA in the past. Reap what you sow.