well having owned two ambient fine offset products and oregon in the last 4 years i can honestly say from my own experiences the extra buck for the reliability and availability of options and the reliabilty under rather wild weather conditions the davis product range is a far outright winner .dont be put off by the console you wont regret but it comes at a cost . pretty as the ambient display console might look but two years of istanbul high uv sun and dense fog in the autumn the ambients outdoor sensors all in one never survived or was able report data accurately or within an acceptable margin . i spent two years fixing them to keep,them running and eventually the wind vand vane just crumbled ,the uv solar sensor cover would mist up and take days to clear .the pro and cons but pay a bit extra for durability and reliability you will be glad you did when the weather goes a bit wild .
ive said before wish id bought the davis vp2 years ago when i had the opportunity would have saved quite a bit of money and frustration..
the additional options open up your options of where you would like to share,store your data be it a cloud, services,localized storage these options made available by third party developers are well thought out and will open up your horizons and no it dont cost $300 there are a few ways to do this for less and your not committed to one service or tied to one service..
ps as for your original question whats wrong with davis consoles ,i would never buy a weather station just based on the console id be rather more interested in what the data accuracy performance is like and its expandibility and build quality,all in one stations can leave your wanting more as the interest and enthusiasm grows but ultimately the step up comes at a cost..if i sound pro davis its because i got my fingers burnt with low cost all in one solutions and istanbul is far from a wild weather tornado,hurricane region but we get strong high uv for many months, we get horrendous lightning storms,we get dense fog in our short autumn i live 150 metres from the sea front ,if you live in something like that then save your money and go for durability and availability of parts as above two ambients and oregon did not survive any of that and i would not call those extreme weather condiitons.. when i owned the ambients,oregon i was a happy man thought why spend more until the weather turned a bit wild and I became dissallutioned when it was the actual weather making my weather hardware fail..if you live in an environment where the conditions are relatively mild then you may fair better than i did..
bottom line justify the cost or not ...