If development simply follows the average joe's computer's abilities why not just give more options to "dumb it down" a bit for the average computer but design the program to the highest standard possible?

I hate it when I know the program I'm running is so much more capable than I'm able to run it. However, if I spend the $$$ for a top of the line computer I would REALLY hate it knowing that everything I'm running on it was designed for the average joe's computer.