I kinda feel like that even though I only paid 15. The earpods are very respectable open buds for 2013. However, I've been listening to them fairly often for a few months, and vis-a-vis the old apple buds, for some reason I don't really feel they're better. Each time my instinct tells me to pick up the old apple buds.
Of course it's possible that they too need 200-300? hours of burn and I still haven't gotten there yet, but my old pair is also unlikely to have that much history.
The earpods are structurally very interesting though, the driver layout is a lot like Bose IE/2 but without the silicone tip. It's also a lot like Sony's vertical-in-the-ear design. I geek out on things like this.