Yes, that is why I put ‘middle ground’ in quotes. It is a difficult notion I have found. Basically you are right though, ‘middle ground’ even with quotes is really misleading and leads to the idea that what matters is a kind of half way point between two others, a kind of crude ‘compromise’ which is not what is meant at all.
It is a pleasure to talk to you Father by the way! I will listen to the show you were in. I didn’t know about it at all.
In the case we were talking about; an excess of possessions, or the desire for is ‘greed’ I suppose? And a deficiency becomes, well what? ‘mortification’, ‘self neglect’ ostentatious asceticism even, etc. etc.? It is a tricky notion to pin down. Aristotle himself would probably, for example, in my view anyway, have eschewed the approach of say, St Francis, who ‘apologized’ at death to “poor Brother Donkey (his body)” for the trials he put it through? It would be interesting to follow this up somewhere one day with y’all… I fear it will pull us away from Power Use now though 
My jurisprudence is founded really on a species of Natural Law I might say to you…, though a more secular one.
Regarding Apple stuff I find that possession, if you will, is only part of the story. For me and for many others much of the pleasure, if you like, is adapting and using the power tools… ? Those, for me, have become the shiny things, but that has calmed down a bit recently. I feel that much of the pleasure I get is in the use to put it that way. My wife points out that my IT habits consume a lot less money and resources than drinking, sleek cars and much else that folk do? I don’t know if she is right, she is very patient with me.
On my Mac I seek, and I hope I am not facetious, the Golden Mean between remorseless efficiency as an end in itself and endless dilly dallying and time wasting while I add complicated macros, snippets and classification systems 
