Hunting Unicorns

Why is it so difficult/impractical/impossible to design a music server requiring no external control device such as a laptop or tablet? The Aurender A100H seems nearest to what I want -- onboard storage, USB output, no DAC, no volume control. But as I understand it, even this requires "iPad control via the Conductor app" and offers no access to web-based streaming radio stations. So, like many others posting here, I'm "wasting" a Macbook Pro as my digital music source, feeding USB to a streamer/DAC/digital preamp combo device. 

To rephrase: why can't I have just one box receiving everything from everywhere, and sending anything via USB to my favorite outboard DAC? Of course this unicorn WOULD have its own dedicated remote that is not itself a computer.

Advance apologies for what is very likely a dumb question generated by an ancient, analog-wired brain.