The problem I see there is that you're sacrificing your stats to do so in some fashion, or your edge, or your skills, or some other aspect for a relatively minimal gain, because of the huge investment in nuyen you need to put in that takes away from other places in the build
Well, you're sacrificing 4 Attribute points to gain enough nuyen to get 3-4 attribute points, and points to raise your most important attribute above it's normal limit, to boot.
Meaning you save karma getting those other attributes up some time later.
It might be a disadvantage at the start, but it pays dividends later.
I don't know about that. I've made a few sample characters, and here is how it generally works out:
Bioware costs to get a full essence of good bioware: roughly 120k nuyen, or the difference between priority B and priority C resources.
Cost of the quality: 10 karma
Now for a priority worth of resources and 10 karma you get the following (as an example);
+2 strength (augmented) (important, as raising augmented attribute points is much easier than normal attribute points)
+2 agility (augmented) (important, as raising augmented attribute points is much easier than normal attribute points)
+1 to your primary combat skill (reflex recorder)
something else, say a sleep recorder
Now consider the trade-off:
You can up your attributes a level, for 4 more attribute points.
If you're taking a B in resources you likely took a hit in your attributes somewhere. If you're a troll, for example, you'll likely be able to raise agility by 1 and various initiative attributes by 3. You'd also have an extra 10 nuyen (which translates to 20k, which can get you that reflex recorder if you want, or whatever).
You can raise, say, your magic by a level. For example, if you're an adept you could go from magic D to magic C. Assuming you put your special points into magic, this would essentially get you 2 additional points of edge, 2 skill points to use, and the karma (with your additional edge, you could get Revel in Murder, for example).
You can raise, say, your skills by a level. If you were an elf, for example, you may have had skills D. So going to skills C would net you 8 more skill points and 2 group points. And you'd have the 10 karma.
If you're building properly, a lot of these things would take significant karma expenditures to get ... so its not so simple, imho.