Well, the But that doesn't change the fact that all these are low-end scopes.
That is your opinion, and you're very welcome to it.
That's not just my opinion, that's simply the standard way the scope segments are divided in the T&M industry. You can ignore it of course but that doesn't change how the market is divided.
Keysight's low-end goes from the DSO1000 Series (entry-level) over the DSOX2000 (mid-entry) to the DSOX3000(T) (upper low-end). The midrange starts with the DSOX4000 and end in the DSOX6000. The high-end range starts with the DSO9000(H) (lower high-end), and goes over the DSO(X)90k(A) Series (mid high-end) to the S, V and Z Series (upper high-end).
LeCroy's low-end goes from the WaveAce (entry-level) over the WaveJet (mid-entry) to the WaveSurfer 3000 (upper low-end). The midrange starts with the WaveSurfer 10 and the HDO4000 (lower midrange) and ends with the WaveSurfer Xs-B and the HDO6000/8000 Series (upper midrange). The high-end starts with the WaveRunner 6zi (lower high-end), goes over the WavePro 7zi (mid high-end) and WaveMaster 8zi (upper high-end), and ends with the LabMaster (ultra high end).
R&S' low-end is populated by the Hameg HMO Series (entry level to upper low-end), the midrange starts with the RTM (lower midrange) and ends with the RTE (upper midrange), and the RTO (actually a lower high-end scope) is their only high-end variant.
If you talk with manufacturer sales and read their internal marketing training material you'll see that this is how the scopes are categorized in this day and age.
I don't think the car analogy was at all inappropriate, and you didn't give a reason why it "failed", so I guess without that justification we'll have to disagree on that. I thought, and still think, it's quite a valid comparison.
It isn't, for various reasons. First, cars are bought emotionally, which is completely contrary to test equipment which is predominantly bought after a more or less hard set of requirements. When a hobbyist buys a scope some emotional component might be involved, but that's still not the same as the car market where emotions play a large part of a purchase decision (which is why advertising mostly plays to the emotional side, hence the often silly commercials).
Also, cars have much more variety than scopes. VW (like other car manufacturers) not only offer hatchbacks but also sedans, station wagons, SUVs, Crossovers, Vans, plus a number of high-powered sports variants, pretty much across most (all?) segments. All of them allow tons of options, plus most models are available with a variety of different engines and transmissions (and some even with four wheel drive). People interested in say a hatchback might not be interested in a sedan or SUV variant but would probably consider the hatchback variant of the smaller car, while a station wagon customer might consider the SUV variant as well. A customer interested in the sports version of a sedan might not consider the sports version of the SUV or Crossover variant but might consider the sports version of the Station Wagon variant, and so on. With cars, there are much more differentiators than just the 'class' (i.e. sub-compact, compact, midrange, luxury, etc), thanks to a gazillion of options a sub-midrange car like say an Audi A4 can be ordered with engines and options of that available two classes above, leaving essentially just the smaller size of the car as a differentiator. Can you do that with a scope, i.e. ordering the processing, sampling and memory capabilities of a upper midrange model for an entry level scope? No, you can't.
I do agree that some aspects of the 3000 are a little backward such as waveform screen resolution and memory depth, but there are also positive aspects such as the 1Mwfm/s. I wouldn't call a 4 or 5Gsa/s scope with a bandwidth up to 1GHz low end. 100MHz perhaps, but bandwidth isn't everything depending on your application. For audio work I'd say the 3000 is way up there for example.
Aside from the fact that audio work isn't really demanding, 5GSa/s, up to 1GHz, small screen and limited processing/FFT/Maths simply puts the DSOX3000(T) right into the low end segment. I agree that some of its specs would have been considered midrange say 10 years ago, but they're simply not in 2015.
I think we're all well aware that you regularly have the luxury of driving five figure scopes at work and find them to be run of the mill to you, but not everyone sits in that position, very few in fact.
Right, but so what? Coming back to car analogies you seem to love, do you think a compact hatchback like a VW Golf turns into a luxury vehicle just because the buyer can't afford something better? I don't think so.
So why should it be the case for scopes?
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