Do you consider cables to be a "component" of your system?

Obviously pretty things sell, don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that.
 

Yeah, that must be it because if you think the crappy black PCs that come with most equipment sound good then the rest of us surely must be wrong and kidding ourselves if we hear improvements with more expensive cables. Silly us. 

The only reason a good quality manufacturer isn’t involved with this whole cable BS thing is just that there’s no science behind it no consistent reality so essentially it is BS.
 

Maybe you can then explain why none — NONE — of the electronics manufacturers use the cables that that come with their equipment at audio shows where they obviously want their equipment to sound its best?  They ALL use pricey aftermarket PCs.  Hmmm.  Clearly must be a conspiracy of some sort.  

A decent piece of equipment will have decent cables end of story. I know of no manufacture of quality product that sells that product with junk power cables.

On the contrary, I have a hard time thinking of a manufacturer that sells their products with decent power cables. 
 

Having said that why would anybody assume they know more than engineers of said product and swap out parts with bogus Parts at ridiculous prices to support a BS industry. 

They don’t, but you’re assuming the engineers chose the power cable shipped with the product because they thought it was the best.  If electronics manufacturers shipped their products with better cables it’d increase the price significantly and there’s no guarantee that providing a better power cord would work well in the context of the customer’s system and their personal tastes.  Manufacturers of good equipment know that cables are a crapshoot given those significant variables and that their customers either already have or will choose their own aftermarket PCs so providing better cords and increasing the price of their product accordingly makes no sense. 

I view cables like tires on a car.  The better the car the more the tires matter, and if you put crappy tires on a good car they undermine a lot of the strengths you bought the car for in the first place.  And just as with cables in the context of an overall audio system, the characteristics of the tires need to work well with the suspension/handling characteristics of the car or performance is compromised.  This is how I explain cables to my non-audiophile friends and they seem to get it even if they’re still a little skeptical.