Yea, I was aware of the secondhand modifier, and the delta clinic thing and most of the fluff stuff. But I was hoping that I had just missed a paragraph somewhere. Seems like that would be ripe for a house rule. I mean, yea, cred is king and all that, but getting your hands on a Beta version of wired has got to be harder than finding a Standard version of the same ware. I would probably say A=+1, B=+4, D=+10. These numbers would represent a combination of the difficulty in finding both the ware itself, and a clinic to put it in. Of course, the Delta ware clinic would also be limited by the GM allowing it in the 1st place in game, in addition to the availability check modifier.
Unless.... I suppose you could explain it away as "the reduction in essence cost is due to a better Doc/facility rather than a difference in the ware itself", that would at least explain why it's just as easy to get the ware itself. But then you would need to figure out some rules for determining how good the doc/facility is, etc. And, you would have to ignore that little tidbit where the book says that "Beta and Delta are designed, modified and customized to better fit the original/intended user" as well... probably not worth the effort.
Anyone else have an opinion on this matter?