Dell screws the channel
Dell has complete contempt for the channel which is why more and more resellers have switched over to HP and other vendors. It is frequently cheaper to buy through their retail website than the partner channel and they will undercut reseller to win the business directly from the customer if they ask. Glad to see karma working away against the Dell machine. Congratulations on reaping what you've sown over the years.
If HP could get their order processing as slick as Dell then the rot would accelerate with more and more vendors switching to HP kit.