Azslow, you missed my point.  My suggestion is because many that start out saying they only want to do menial things such as check e-mail ultimately wind up doing more demanding things with their new PC and thus are faced with upgrading or replacing in some cases.  I have had many of my clients thank me, later on, for my suggestions to buy a better PC rather than a low end/entry level machine.

fireberd
Azslow, you missed my point.  My suggestion is because many that start out saying they only want to do menial things such as check e-mail ultimately wind up doing more demanding things with their new PC and thus are faced with upgrading or replacing in some cases.  I have had many of my clients thank me, later on, for my suggestions to buy a better PC rather than a low end/entry level machine.

May be you are right and I am missing your point...
But when someone ask me for a new computer, I speak with the person at least 20 minutes (usually much more). To know/predict as good as possible what the person (or a group) is going to do with this computer (including questions about periodically coming children, general hobbies, patience level, etc), even when the person does not know that himself. I think I will completely stop to give advises as soon as I no longer able to make correct guesses (I hope that time is in far future, but I know it will come...).

No such thing as future proof unless you are content with your hardware.

"Future proof" is an expression not to be taken literally.  It simply means to look ahead as far as practical, or as far as you can afford.  Nobody can see what hasn't been created yet, so ultimately everything will become obsolete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_proof
 
I spent many years in the IT industry, and these concepts were frequently discussed there.
 
For me now, it just means getting about 7-10 years out of a PC build.  Good return on investment! 

I too was in the computer industry (LAN/WAN Networking Management) in a US Federal Agency and in the early 90's the "planners" were looking at what the agency may be tasked to do in 2000 and beyond and forming what hardware (and software) may be required or will support possible future requirements.  In 1995 the agency had a plan in place and even started on the "Y2000" potential problems.   Having learned from that is what brought me to the recommendations I make about what to buy.  

abacab
 
 getting about 7-10 years out of a PC build.  Good return on investment! 

Yes. This is the goal. 

still on my XP system i built in 2008
 
STILL GOING STRONG.
 
but i'm looking to update soon

batsbrew
still on my XP system i built in 2008

While I still have dual-boot with XP (see my signature), I use it only to upgrade old Android devices. I also had 2GB for long time, but without 4 I could not load modern sample based synth...

batsbrew
still on my XP system i built in 2008
 
STILL GOING STRONG.
 
but i'm looking to update soon

I still have a single core Dell P4 laptop from 2005 with XP and Sonar 8.5 installed that still runs.  Unfortunately my Win XP desktop that was built in 2006 with a single core config started feeling the strain of bottlenecks by 2012.  I finally had to replace that in 2014, with a newer multicore setup.  No regrets!
 
I must say that I really like what Intel has accomplished in eliminating most of the historical bottlenecks in these modern motherboard chipsets.  Increased video and memory bandwidth, no more front side bus, or north/south bridge nonsense.  DDR3 /DDR4 memory, the fast I/O capabilities of PCIe and USB3, coupled with faster storage devices.  It's hard to believe what the past 10 years have brought us!
 
Next built will probably be 8-10 cores, M-2 drives, etc., but no hurry.  This rig is still getting the job done!