Perhaps. But once the end user notices the lag compared to their friends device, it very quickly becomes an end users (and very shortly, the platforms) problem. My android lags, and it pisses me off.
per your quote: "It's the same as getting an upgrade to your PC, a new video card, etc. You were perfectly happy before, but relative to your new reality the old one seems subpar, and you overestimate how much it interferes with your enjoyment of the device." Doesn't quite make sense in this market though. It's all about having the fastest, shiniest, device. And if you can't keep up or deliver ever demanding performance increases, you die. If good was good enough, and we didn't care that the next best thing was only marginally better, we'd still be using punch cards.