> You mention a 25-minute difference between racking a no-tools rail kit and > one that requires a screwdriver. At any reasonable hourly rate for someone > to rack and stack that is a very small percentage of the cost of the > hardware. If a device that takes half an hour to rack is $50 cheaper than > one that has the same specs and takes five minutes, you're past break-even > to go with the cheaper one. >
I can understand the OP if his job is to provide/resell the switch and rack it and then someone else (the customer) is operating it ;-) As my fellow netops said, the switches are installed for a long time in the racks (5+ years). I accept to trade installation easyness for performance/feature/stability. When I need to replace it, it is never in a hurry (and cabling properly takes more time than racking). So easy installed rails may be a plus but far behind enything else.