Become excited about all of these ideas, buy one, set it up, install updates, install games, play each one level to test FPS, then don't turn it on for months, let it gather dust. Similar to how the whole Steam library works, just with hardware.
Many people see the Steam Machine as little more than an expensive mini PC for the living room. However, a recent Reddit thread suggests that Valve's compact gaming PC could be interesting for a range of use cases that many users may not have considered.