So it appears that i1Pro (not publish) is like $1399 but with hardware. If you provide a 70% off upgrade discount which is pretty decent, you get an upgrade fee of $420. So maybe the $499 is a tad high...
I know that Pixel Genius offers a 70% off upgrade fee (I mention this not to attract upgrades although that’s nice, I mention it because its the only personal and real experience I have providing software upgrades for customers). Now maybe 70% is not enough. Or maybe when you bundle hardware with your product, something that is part of this X-rite package, the discount should be different. I’m simply asking people here to consider what would be a reasonable upgrade fee for software only. So lets take the LR scenario. At least on Adobe’s site, LR is new, $299, upgrades are $99. 70% off would be $90 for the upgrade. We’re not too far off here math wise right? And yes, for your 30% fee, you do get some new, useful functionality in i1P, the most being superior quality profiles and of course the ability to run that software in Lion (which ain’t free either and will likely cost you money on other software upgrades).
Note too, X-Rite can’t give Mac users a better upgrade path than Windows users, just because Mac users are stuck with this new, optional OS that breaks their older software!
In the end, is $499 worth the newer features and newer OS compatibility to you? But looking at two other examples of upgrades (PG and Adobe), I don’t think X-Rite is over the top here. In hindsight, an upgrade fee of $399 or $419 might have attracted more upgrades but that’s pure speculation on my part.