There is no need for apology. I've bought great stuff because it was interesting. Few of us proclaim our failures.
* I've bought two early Apple IIs which turned out to be crappy clones. That's fine. I have expensively boosted my pool of Apple II spare parts.
* I have bought disappointing Mac accelerators or graphics cards for my vintage Macs.
But, caveat emptor, lots of computers have interesting internals, and you never know...