Everyone involved in the efforts of developing a consistent and consumer-ready UI and stringent metaphors from the beginnings at PARC deserves due respect. E.g., the team at Xerox SDD (Systems Development Department) developing the Star, the team at PERQ (Three Rivers), and, of course, Apple (there were probably a few more). They are probably somewhat undeserved in the shadow of what was still early (and often inconsistent) experiments.
And, yes, the first commercial GUI systems were expensive, as they required fast processors and comparably lots of RAM, which was expensive. It was probably still too early for consumer oriented systems and the systems that were had to address special niches, like knowledge workers and experts. Even the Mac just barely managed a certain level of affordabilty, and this only by (initially) including just a barely viable amount of RAM. (Compare 128K for Mac vs 2MB for the Lisa, which also meant stripping advanced features like multitasking.)
And, yes, the first commercial GUI systems were expensive, as they required fast processors and comparably lots of RAM, which was expensive. It was probably still too early for consumer oriented systems and the systems that were had to address special niches, like knowledge workers and experts. Even the Mac just barely managed a certain level of affordabilty, and this only by (initially) including just a barely viable amount of RAM. (Compare 128K for Mac vs 2MB for the Lisa, which also meant stripping advanced features like multitasking.)