> The camera budget wouldn't have been moved to the production budget.

It could have. For sure.

> The production budget is determined independently, based on the ROI of said budget.

No, the production budget is determined by the production needs.

> Tossing more money at the production budget would have done practically very little over the course of the last two years when the issue chip supplies

That's not true. Intel, AMD, Razer, Seinnheiser, Xbox, Steelseries, Playstation, Sony, etc. are ALL constantly improving their production. And most of those have chip production shortage. Just because steps #298 of the production is slowed down, doesn't mean the hundreds of other steps can't be optimized.

My statements implies that there's still some possible improvement when it comes to the entire production. Which is true. No company right now has a perfect production.

Just because Raspberry pi doesn't manufacture the board, doesn't mean they can't possibly improves the production. Plenty of tech companies don't manufacture their own stuff, as it's made in some factory in China, yet they still work and improve their production, from signing better deals, from improving the R&D so that the manufacturing process is more streamlined, from switching to easier to work materials, finding better carriers with better routes, etc.

Once again, you're making a point that the raspberry pi production line is near perfect. That's just being ignorant.

> The only 'R&D' they could do is change board design to account for additional chips

See how ignorant you're being? How is that the only R&D possible? You're implying Raspberri pis are near-perfect.

Like, here's your take:

• Signing better manufacturing deals from different factories = Nope raspberry pi fondation has near-perfect manufacturers right now.
• R&D to ease the manufacturing of Raspberries, from the board specs to materials = Nope raspberry pis manufacturing and design are near-perfect right now.
• Finding a better carrier with more direct routes/less downtime = Nope raspberry pi fondation has near-perfect carriers right now.
• Cut deals with manufacturers to develop/add more customs raspberry pi automated assembly machines = Nope raspberry pi fondation has near-perfect amount of automated assembly machines right now.

EVERY TECH COMPANIES are investing to improve their production lines because there's optimization to be done, but you think raspberry pi fundation is immune to that, because there's little to do?

BILLIONS DOLLARS COMPANIES constantly invest to improve their production lines, to cut down manufacturing times, but Raspberry pi fundation is near-perfect and wouldn't benefits from investing more into their production lines? Such an ignorant take.