I lent my Rega book to someone and didn't get it back! ;0) I think top loading is a perfectly good idea. Cheaper, reliable, yeah no problem with it but I don't think Rega's implementation on the Saturn is very good and I'm sorry to see they haven't redesigned it on the new player. If you get a chance to look at one, imagine trying to load and unload a CD if you had very large hands, arthritis or some other kind of limitation. The lid does not get fully out of the way so have limited space to work in. You cannot go straight down, you need to bend your fingers while holding the CD to get it in without hitting the lid or scraping the disk off the top of the player. Then you only get two small and badly positioned indents to get two fingers into to lift the CD back out. Without good dexterity you're going to struggle. It's not particularly comfortable at the best of times and there's no need for it. The indents could have been twice the width and that alone would've made a big difference without effecting functionally or aesthetics at all.
I could go downstairs and look at mine!!! Hold on!
Right-
Inserting discs is very simple. Hold the disc by the edge as normal (if you can't do this, then no CD players are any good). Move your hand in at a shallow angle (no more difficult than coming in at 90 degrees). Let go of disc, then gently push down to engage the notches.
Taking disc out. I actually find the shape of the indents to be very good (much larger than required, and all but the fattest of fingers should have no problem). The annoying bit is the location. Instead of having them fore and aft, they would be better off located on the sides I think. As it is, the aft indent is not much use as the lid is in the way. However, most people should still be fine, as it does not take a lot to put a finger in the fwd indent, and flick the disc up.
But yes, my only suggestion would be the location of the indents.
I'm not exactly sure what you're saying, it would be cheaper without the inputs? Yeah, it might be slightly. The DAC circuit already had all the inputs but you could have not fitted the sockets and omitted the holes on the case. Which is something manufacturers do. Many Japanese cassette decks for instance used the same board across the range and simply blanked off the buttons and omitted the components from the board on lower models with less features. The difference in production cost was probably negligible but it was a lot cheaper than designing new boards for each model.
So Rega already had the DAC board design. There was probably little additional cost in just fitting the whole thing rather than cutting it back, so they're giving the buyer a lot more functionality for not a lot more money. Personally, I find it bizarre that anyone is complaining about it! You want a DAC from Naim, they want you do buy another whole product. Despite the fact you already have one of their DACs inside your Naim CD player. But they can't give you inputs to it because..bullshitbullshitbullsit, right? So Rega said 'No, that's dumb. The DAC is in the box anyway, crazy not to let you access it'. Good for them.
As per my post. It wouldn't even be cheaper.
I was agreeing with you that a 2nd design with less holes for a minority of people has zero benefit. Then adding the fact that designing another case to suit the minority of people that don't like additional holes, would not actually be any cheaper. Designing and manufacturing 2 different cases, and 2 different internal setups, is likely to increase costs as you no longer have the same saving from a large product batch.
You want large product runs of the same item.
Whats cheaper to manufacture?
1- 100 boxes with 10 holes
2- 90 boxes with 10 holes and 10 boxes with 5 holes?
Those 10 boxes would be a nuisance to manufacture. The saving from having less sockets on the back is more than lost by having to manufacture a small run of a different item. Even though the changes are extremely small.
Anyway, we are both in agreeance. The cost saving for those picky people is probably nothing, so what is the point?