It could be debated that the choice was a sound business decision. In any product cycle there will be a push from marketing to add features, a push from the bean counters to cut cost, and a push from the engineer(s) to make their baby as great as possible. All sides have to pick their battles and be prepared to compromise. In the end, the engineer may decide that it's acceptable to use a cheaper type of capacitor rather than cut other corners more detrimental to the final product in order to fall within the budget.

This is what makes clever engineers like Steve Wozniak so impressive. He had a real knack for cutting costs to the bare bones while still finding ways of packing in functionality above and beyond what anyone else was offering at anywhere close to a competitive price.