All digital = no analog audio or video i/o... it means some old gadgets won't be recognized, even with an adapter

This is Apple in a nutshell. They done this since the first Mac. "If you want to play with our new toys you WILL pay for everything anew".

Hey shepherd, what is the best way to milk a sheep? http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/5355849_700b.jpg

I'm an avid Apple fan, have been for years. Sadly, Apple has more or less just attempted to play catchup with Samsung and their 'latest' (May) Galaxy SIII and will need to again if they wish to match the Samsung Note 2. I honestly believe that the only thing stopping people from dumping the iPhone for the Samsung offerings is their tied software and functionality. Apples Apps are no longer a great monopoly, iTunes to boot and with Samsung giving you open source Android and microsim expansion, I and anyone else in my opinion would be totally crazy to upgrade from an iPhone 4S to a 5. The sheep will follow regardless and what a hell of a waste of money and resources that will be.
Oh, what happened to the EU ruling on micro-USB connectors across all manufacturers?

Plus in Europe this goes in the face of all other phone manufacturers agreeing in one standard for connectors. Oh, of course, they will sell you an adapter priced as gold. The UE should ban the iPhone5 and send Apple back to the drawing boards just for this. Call me hater but when Apple falls off its pedestal you will not find many crying.

"ruthless when it comes to dropping technology it believes is past its use-by date"
yeah right, that's why "lightning" is still a USB2.0 connection. This connection is alreasy 10years old! yes usb2.0 exactly like the iPhone 1 !

I think you missed an important point here. The reason the adapter is so expensive is because it's an 'active' adapter. In other words, there's a chip on there that performs the digital to analog conversion. Thunderbolt also requires active cables btw.
Also, it has been reported by Ars Technica that Apple is not licensing out the ability for 3rd party versions of this cable. So we're not likely to see legal, 3rd party, cheaper alternatives.

It is about time that Apple accepts that, amongst other things, they cannot create standards unilaterally....by definition the term "standard" indicates that many organisations are conforming to it. Nor can they afford to play silly buggers anymore with Android devices at 4 times iOS and the gap growing daily, they really need to do everything possible to attempt to slow down the loss of faith in Apple and its weird ideas.

Apple systems advancements "Because selling adapters is so dam profitable."

I am using the 110v to USB plug from my old BlackBerry that is 3 gens old and the microUSB plug from my last device to charge and connect my brand new HTC (which is really not a new model even) Android.
I just don't get Apple people, I really don't.