I've had nothing but good experiences with this - bought several refurb Macs from Apple and each one has been indistinguishable from a new machine. I always extend my warranty as well.

The only downside is that Apple will charge sales tax, which can be substantial on a $1,000 or $2,000 item. Last time I bought a MBP it was actually cheaper to get a new one from Amazon because they were discounting it. (That was before Amazon started charging sales tax in my state, obviously - otherwise it would have been a wash)

http://www.refurb.me/ is monitoring service for the official Apple refurb store. Because it's hard to know when the product that you want to buy will become available. RefurbMe will alert you by email or SMS to go buy it on the Apple Store.

Ditto that! All my Apple products are refurbished. Working great and 20 to 50% off.

Only if you like to upgrade frequently. Otherwise your prev gen refurbished will run into non-support for the next OS or hardware innovation.

  > You have to be extremely rich to value your 
  > time in the thousands per hour.

You and I can simply add a monitor in a few minutes, but it's not five-minute job if it's not a process you're familiar with. There are a lot of questions.

- What monitor do I even buy?

- What's a good monitor brand?

- Do I have to buy an Apple-branded monitor? If not, do I have to look for "Mac compatible" or something on the box?

- I have to buy cables?

- What cables do I need? (The customer will probably need an adapter, at least, as most monitors do not include a Mini-DP connector/adapter)

- Can I just use my TV?

And so on and so forth. It's a lot more than just the physical act of plugging a monitor in.

Again, it's so easy for us, but you if you work in the tech industry you really need to think outside of your own head sometimes. Imagine if car manufacturers expected us to manually adjust the fuel/air mix in the engine because it's just a "five minute job."

You could start by estimating the time cost correctly. You're assuming that the time required to select the right monitor is zero, that the time required to understand the various connection standards is zero, etc., etc., etc. The only cost you're counting is the act of unboxing and plugging it in.

Maybe you and I keep track of this stuff professionally or as a hobby, but most "grandmothers" don't. Quick: What's the best lock-in amplifier for rejecting mains interference. What? You don't know what dynamic reserve means? Jeez, you're such a dummy.

Think about how you would go about buying a piece of technical equipment outside your domain of expertise. That's what a "grandmother" is doing when he/she is buying a monitor.