Some wiseass doesn't come up with a hard drive like device that you can
plug flash media/drives into to increase the storage capacity.

For example, you buy the FlashDRiVE (c). It looks like a USB hub.
It comes with no storage built-in. You plug your 4GB USB flash drive
into it, and the computer now 'sees' a 4GB hard drive. Put, say, 10 connections
on the device and have an initial maximum storage capacity of 40GB.
Be able to upgrade the storage capacity limit via a firmware upgrade.

Make this device bootable and you're ready to rock. Oh, and connect it to
the PC via a 1394a or 1394b connection for speed. USB 2.0 is too unreliable.