Cindy,

Over a year the value of their time far outweighs the cost of a new PC.

If the goal is "employee wellbeing/efficiency" there is no obvious alternative, so my statement holds. But I see you are in the health industry, where managers may regard staff as a fixed operational cost whereas screens are a capital expense to be avoided. If that is the goal, managers may be rewarded by keeping staff peering at small screens and reducing capital spend. As you say, there are all sorts of cues.

Take a look at http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2006/1/12/18225/4731 - quickbooks has a long history serving the small business market, but even with their low prices they are introducing "sunset tactics" to make upgrades almost mandatory. People just don't want to spend the $ if they can keep using the same old version. Extrapolate that to servers, PCs *and licenses for new OS/SQL Server/Office etc etc* ...

Of course, we can theorize all day about cost-effectiveness, but small business owners still make decisions in whatever way seems logical to them.

Sure. I hadn't meant to say that small business doesn't want to upgrade at all, I meant they'd prefer not to if there is an alternative way to reach whatever goal they have set, which generally includes maximizing income for the shareholder/managers.