Hey, Rex, the price is decided by supply and demand, not by the quality!! Look the diamond price, it's legal panzi scheme by monopoly . I don't think normal people will use it once in normal life. But it was labelled "forever" by monopoly, so people have to buy them for love. And I think SX-1250 is far better than diamond!!
Even though I am not a big fan of Pionny, I still think sx-1250 is well worth $450 or more. And rarity also adds value to it.
Some models got hypered, some got ignored. I just won a Yamaha R-9 on ePay for starting bid price $99, I am the only bidder. If I haven't read your input in this thread and have a R-8 to listen, I won't bid on the R-9. If I didn't bid, the seller would have it re-listed again.
I had Adcom GFA-545 ii, but I didn't like the forward sound of adcom. I am listening Yammy M-70 now, and my M-60 will be back from tech very soon, but I picked this power amp up. It sounds sweet (MOSFET) and fantastic. I'll let you guess the brand and model.