Selling exactly the same hardware with different prices and performance is actually a pretty old practice. I've read stories of people long ago buying hardware upgrades for IBM mainframes and being surprised when the IBM engineer just came over and cut a wire on the backplane. "OK, you have twice as much memory now. Have a nice day!"
A pal of mine told me about a make of car (could've been the Fiat 128 or the VW Polo - circa mid to late 80's) that had a small analogue clock as an optional extra.
Apparently it was always factory fitted into the dashboard. If you didn't order the clock, or whatever option pack that included the clock, the manufacturer just put a blanking plate over the clock face and (I think) disconnected the power (my memory is vague on this). He claimed to have discovered this on one of his, or his mother's cars, when curiosity got the better of him as to what was behind one of these accessory blanking plates.
I have a Mazda 3, which didn't have the fuel computer display (shows you remaining mileage, current mpg etc). After I bought it I found out that by doing a little dance with the buttons and turning it on and off I could enable it. Now the only difference is that mine has a blank button to cycle through it rather than one that says "Fuel Comp".
