You have several logical inconsistancies and unfounded assertions in your statements.

1. "It seems to follow that if it could afford X to get to this point, if necessary it could afford some fraction of X to get to the next desirable point."

It in no way follows that is a company spent X dollars, that they can then afford to again spend 1/2 of X or any fraction.
It in no way follows that the next desirable point would require a large expenditure.

2. "In my view affordability, while a factor, is not as important as the end state you envision for the business."

The one, and only legitimate, goal of any business is to make a profit. Period. All other goals are secondary at best. All other goals can be accomplished best -- and sometimes only -- if the business makes a profit. Removing affordability from any business equation is irresponsible. The vision for the end state of a business is a vision of profitability. That may mean spending more than you thought, but it never means spending needlessly and it always means cost is a key part of the vision.

3. "If you and the client have a clear vision, sooner or later an affordable solution will present itself."

Really? What evidence do you have to support that? The vast majority of new businesses fail. Affordable solutions to problems are never a sure thing.

4. "On the other hand some clients' processing needs are changing rapidly and they are moving quickly to PHP and .NET."

Never seen any business software system that had a "need" to be written in .Net. Desire,maybe, but a need is something else. Does not mean VFP is always the answer, but again, no such thing as a system that needs to be written in .Net. Additionally, there may be a case out there, but I have never seen a case in which it was more efficient or cost effctive to write in .Net. When we do .Net projects, the reason is always the same -- the business client wishes us to do so because of marketing, they never have a legitimate reason.

>>>>>I see many companies (mainly SMB's) running entirely on VFP, for whom moving somewhere else would mean so many changes, so many inflection points, so many business risks that it requires a very strong engineering team to carry on safely. It also appears that many of these companies can't afford these engineering skills, for both economical and cultural reasons.
>>>
>>>There's a fundamental contradiction here.
>>>If they need a strong engineering team and can't afford one, how did they get where they are?
>>>By the way.. who DOESN'T need a strong engineering team?
>>
>>No, not necessarily a contradiction. If they have a good working system in VFP that means they hired or contracted a good dev team sometime in the past. Doesn't mean they need, or have one, now.
>
>That's true.
>A plane uses more fuel getting off the ground than it does maintaining an even speed.
>The emphasis on affordability here is what I'm questioning.
>If it cost X to get this point, the company of necessity must have been able to afford X.
>It seems to follow that if it could afford X to get to this point, if necessary it could afford some fraction of X to get to the next desirable point.
>In my view affordability, while a factor, is not as important as the end state you envision for the business.
>If you and the client have a clear vision, sooner or later an affordable solution will present itself.
>I have some clients who will be running Fox ad infinitum because it meets their needs as far as they can see.
>On the other hand some clients' processing needs are changing rapidly and they are moving quickly to PHP and .NET.
>Most, however, are a mix. They are morphing a few apps to the web via PHP, new desktop apps use .NET, and a few VFP apps will run forever.