Thanks Mr Popinjay for bringing this up.
I will expand on this a little more.

I was reading an old Keyboard magazine from Sept. 2005. It featured NIN and the interviewer was asking their main keyboardist at the time about his hardware. He explained that hardware getting transported all over the world takes abuse and sited his custom Kaoss pad that had been gutted from its original chassis and built into a plexiglass one.

From that point on I realized that traveling on the road is another monster all on its own. The more 'custom' you make something, the harder time you are going to have fixing it on the road. Obviously I am no pop star, but I do want to gig this box around and not worry about fixing it when, not if it goes down.

Every piece in this box can be replaced. And I have a replacement, or replacement parts sitting on the shelf when it happens. Even the main multitouch all-in-one Lenovo A700 computer system that I put in. I have another sitting on the shelf, ready to go in if I need it.

For the rest of the main components, I choose cheap and easily replaceable pieces. Because obviously buying two or three of them at a time gets expensive as well.

When designing your custom stuff, keep in mind how difficult it will be to replace it. Especially when Murphy's law strikes! Unless you are going to keep it hidden in your basement and not rely on it as your right arm, figure a plan to hedge off future frustration.