Years ago (when Bill Gates said that 640 K is all that is needed or something like that), 512 MB of RAM would have seemed like overkill. Unfortunately (I guess depending on how you look at it), this is no longer the case. I had to send my MacBook Pro in for repairs as it had an annoying whine when running on battery which forced me to use on of my Mac Minis with only 512 MB of RAM for a few days. It clearly wasn’t the speed causing things to slow down (1.66 MHz Core Duo on the Mini and 2.16 GHz Core Duo on the MacBook Pro). The OS kept having to swap things in and out of RAM, everything I did took ages. I was tempted to go buy 2GB of RAM, but couldn’t justify the cost for a test machine. I can’t believe that Apple (and other computer manufacturers) ship machines with this little RAM knowing that it won’t be enough. That’s how they keep the cost down; pay $600 for the machine, spend another $300 in RAM.
Thankfully Apple’s service is fast and I got my MacBook Pro back in 2 days (sent it in on Monday, got it back on Wednesday) otherwise I would have pulled my hair out.
I know what you mean. I bought 2GB ram the next afternoon after purchasing my macbook. It's an extra kick in the crotch that I couldn't even use the 512 that was included if I upgraded.