I'm officially annoyed with Apple

Apple makes it very hard to try to fix something yourself. I've been trying to fix my niece's mini ipod, but every thing I try has not worked. I tried to make an appointment online with one of those techies at the genius bar, and they are so backed up that they don't even have any open appointments. So I've been reading those tutorials to try to fix it myself. But still no luck, in order for me to restore the ipod, I have to buy a firewire cable. It's bad enough for the new ipods they don't give you a power adapter, but now I need to buy a firewire cable to?? What is up with that. When all is said and done, you can end up spending an additional $100 just on basic accessories that should come standard with the packaging. That is so annoying that Apple does this to make a buck. I have always been the biggest fan and advocate of Apple, but this makes me steaming mad!!