I think perhaps the issue is that I'm not typically evaluating things that do not already exist in the company. My employer is established and most things generally work.

I can think of a few pain points I have around storage vendors, functionality of their interfaces, some virtualization niggles, etc. In that case I already have a functioning product and I'm looking to extend functionality and solve a specific issue I have, so if the new product doesn't have it, I stick with what I have.

I'm trying to put myself in the place of someone who doesn't have a category X product at all and am evaluating a number of vendors who all compete in category X, and I'm coming up blank. So likely it's a peculiarity of my scenario -- or, at least, not the kind of customer situation you're dealing with.