Carl--
The market share analogy to one's car (or TV, or other big-ticket consumer item) is somewhat flawed in that cars are generally interoperable, whereas Macs and PCs at a detailed level are not (Boot Camp and virtualization notwithstanding) -- there are network effects associated with personal computer market share (e.g. application availability) that do not apply in your analogy.
As a counter-example, market share of Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD *is* important in dictating the ultimate winner: in terms of available content, leading to player sales, leading to manufacturing cost advantages, leading to ubiquity.
A more accurate analogy including network effects might be market share of diesel automobiles, which require enough critical mass in a region to ensure availability of reasonably-priced diesel at local filling stations. In practice, some states do not allow sale of diesel vehicles (akin to WinIE-only websites or Excel spreadsheets using VBA) and in many areas diesel stations are few and far between with higher per-gallon prices than gasoline.
Having said all of that, I agree with your premise that Apple's influence on the industry these days is disproportionate to its market share.
Carl wrote:
"This is a company making 14% net profits on revenues growing 40%+ a year, while competitors like HP and Dell are living on single-digit profit margins and much flatter growth."
Isn't the above comment similar to the concept of market share? You are saying that Apple is growing faster than competitors, which is another way of saying it is gaining market share.
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