For me, manufacturers know their equipment, but they don’t know our business. Dozens of times I’ve been up late at night pricing out gear at Dell or HP or Lenovo. And they are doing they same nonsense on their website that we trash apple for…ridiculous RAM prices, ridiculous storage prices, and gpu pricing from 2 years ago. I call them up, get someone offshore who claims to be my account manager, and tries to swing me a deal. I dunno. It just doesn’t sit right with me. Resellers give you longevity and long term relationships. When I call Cinesys, its cuz its Steve…and Harry…and Yannick…and they’ve spent decades supporting people like me. The markup is there. They are a business. And for me, its worth it to pay them and have them fill in all the gaps so I don’t get taken for a ride by a manufacturer rep who’s trying to hit a quota.
So, that doesn’t answer all of your questions, but, I’m a reseller fan.