@Kevin Muldoon - don't you think that matching $5 hosting with a $15 or $40 backup service is a bit lop-sided? Is that really all that different from spending $50 on a service that includes pretty much all the reassuring benefits of VaultPress?

There is nothing wrong with $5 hosting from reasonably reputable companies as long as you are relaxed about the occasional glitch or performance issue but for the vast majority of business owners it is cheaper to simply pay $50 and not have to deal with those distractions. Predictability has value.

As for getting a dedicated server, sure, you can do that for $199, you can even get a fully-loaded VPS for $100 that will have a thousand times more capacity (in terms of pageviews) than the $199 WP Engine account but you are massively underestimating and undervaluing the experience and expertise that you have but which the vast majority of customers do not.

It all boils down to time: all of us here have spent thousands of hours mucking about with hosting and that's cool, because we love this stuff, but the average person has no natural interest in it, would not know where to begin and, if he/she had a spare hour, would far prefer to spend it with the kids / the dog / the television.