I actually used to work in IT in a place that built their own systems at least for the engineers using CAD.
Generally by the time anyone would want to upgrade anything in the system it was time for a new system anyway. It did save on initial costs of each machine, and made replacing individual parts easier.
There were roughly 80-100 of these in service at anyone time, built in batches of ten refreshed normally when someone complained.
I don't think this system would have kept scaling though, it took roughly 2 hours just to build assuming no issues. RMA for failed parts took awhile, and meant that more time spent fixing it. The hours were starting to add up when I left, and I can't imagine they continued.
Generally by the time anyone would want to upgrade anything in the system it was time for a new system anyway. It did save on initial costs of each machine, and made replacing individual parts easier.
There were roughly 80-100 of these in service at anyone time, built in batches of ten refreshed normally when someone complained.
I don't think this system would have kept scaling though, it took roughly 2 hours just to build assuming no issues. RMA for failed parts took awhile, and meant that more time spent fixing it. The hours were starting to add up when I left, and I can't imagine they continued.