It's too late to edit, but I do have one more thought on the topic.
From the perspective of an individual, ROI has to be large to justify a $5k/yr investment. HOWEVER, the general principle of "if something is your livelihood, then you should be willing to invest in it as appropriate" is an excellent thing to keep in mind. Moreover, at the scale of a company and typical company decisions the advice makes a ton of sense -- if a $1k monitor and $2k laptop allow your employees to context-switch better or something then you should almost certainly invest in that hardware (contrasted with the employee's view of ROI, the investments are tax-deductible and just have to pay off in absolute value, plus they don't have the delay/interaction with wages/promotions/etc introducing uncertainty and loss into the calculation) (the difference between a few hundred dollars and a few thousand dollars in total capital investment probably does have a huge difference in outcomes for a lot of computer-based employee roles).
From the perspective of an individual, ROI has to be large to justify a $5k/yr investment. HOWEVER, the general principle of "if something is your livelihood, then you should be willing to invest in it as appropriate" is an excellent thing to keep in mind. Moreover, at the scale of a company and typical company decisions the advice makes a ton of sense -- if a $1k monitor and $2k laptop allow your employees to context-switch better or something then you should almost certainly invest in that hardware (contrasted with the employee's view of ROI, the investments are tax-deductible and just have to pay off in absolute value, plus they don't have the delay/interaction with wages/promotions/etc introducing uncertainty and loss into the calculation) (the difference between a few hundred dollars and a few thousand dollars in total capital investment probably does have a huge difference in outcomes for a lot of computer-based employee roles).