It's for people who have their PC on their desk instead of under it.
For thumb drives, just put an external USB hub on your desk, or use the one on the back/side of most current monitors.
Meanwhile, EU sales tax varies by country between 17%-27% (except for Lichtenstein & Switzerland, where it's around 8%)
It's also legally required to be in the sticker price, so what we see is what we pay, no Bistromathics at the checkout!
The article mentions 3 separate PCBs - main PCB parallel with motherboard (goodbye to using any other slots!), output PCB with HDMI & DP sockets, Input PCB with PCIe slot. 12V Hpwr socket elsewhere on the heatsink.
Speaking of ovens, I had a couple of thermal shutdowns whilst gaming at the weekend.
Guess it's time to change out my CPU cooler for this (especially since my PC parts pusher of choice had it for 20% off yesterday!)