Class 1 = an operating environment that's specifically geared toward hosting VM's?
Class 2 = a consumer grade OS that does double duty?
Do I have that right?
As an aside, does anyone else feel like the DRAM prices are due to creep up from these levels?
Yep. Basically serves no other purpose than that. Very limited attack vectors often not possible without physical access. Windows 8 has Hyper V client built in too which is nice. I haven't used it extensively as all my VMs are currently in Workstation. You can only have one.
ECC RAM is pretty cheap nowadays. Usually like $20-30 more than the non ECC version. I got 64GB and it appears to be the same price. I don't think there's any price increase right now. There may be a difference between ECC Registered and ECC Unbuffered. The latter is uncommon and manufacturers like to charge extra.