Too much too fast

Do you know that you can purchase a Quad-core machine with 4GB of RAM for about $500? As we all know, computers always get cheaper, but I am somewhat amazed at how fast these multicore machines are hitting the market. This could be seen as a good thing, because users have access to so much computing power, but it can also be a waste of resources. With the availability of this powerful machines, application developers have gotten careless. Applications are now full with bells and wistles, with not enough real functionality. The worst part about the whole thing is that if you are running an old PC (let's say a single core 2.2 GHz with 512MB, you can do very little with that nowadays). I can barely browse the web anymore. My girlfriend has a 3GB RAM machine and at one point Internet Explorer was using almost 500MB, it's not just IE's fault, there's also javascript and flash to blame as well. I guess I'm just frustrated that I can barely use my PC with 512 MB running Windows. So all in all, because everyone have these powerful machines, application developers are not really too concerned about the little guy who wants to keep enjoying his 6-year old PC. Maybe I should just boycott Windows, Flash, and Javascript altogether and find smarter ways to obtain retreive the information that I need from the web through Minix and Lynx. I may be fed up enough to do that. Until next time, Internet Land.