First, let me say that if it is working well for you, by no means would I argue against it.
But since I have made the opposite recommendation for people considering the choice, let me comment briefly (I have discussed the issue in more detail here).
What you are discussing is hardware. My argument is entirely based on the software, the operating system and the management software of the device. I argue:
- Any multi-purpose device is more of a hassle to manage and less reliable than a single-purpose device. This has obviously always been true (“as reliable as a hammer”), the difference is that computing technology is now so cheap that we can afford many single-purpose devices instead of gaining the economy of a multi-purpose device. Also note that the difference between a single- and a multi-purpose device is in the software stack; the hardware may very well be identical, the software-based single-purpose device is built from general-purpose components.
- If you do want a general-purpose device, a Windows, Mac or standard Linux machine is better because the NAS builders are not very good at that. They are great at building a storage server, but not an application server. This is a difficult claim to substantiate, of course, I would just say that (a) Merrill Lynch does not populate their data centers with NAS boxes, they use Linux or Windows Server, and (b) there are more questions and problems discussed in this forum about NAS than about Windows, let alone ROCK or Nucleus (e.g. your own note here).
If you buy a Nucleus, and especially if you store your music files on a NAS (yay!) or an external USB drive, setting it up is as simple as setting up an FM tuner.