Apple's success is easy setup and use. They make informed decisions on
how their machines are used and set it up that way.
I was totally with you until you mentioned Apple. Apple is user friendly because it takes the control away from the user as a practice. A good example of this is their Airport routers. No web UI, no logs, and have to use a specail app to change any settings.
Changing what the system defaults are is a good idea, however, are those settings really the best for the majority of the user? I would think most would record to a server or security PVR.