Although I respect your opinion, it's simply not true in my opinion. There are too many expensive IEMs that doesn't warrant it's high price tag. The high end audiophile industry is driven by boutique companies, and there are just too many companies simply selling snake oils, because sound is mostly "subjective" and one can claim anything on the basis of subjectivism. There also exists in abundance, head-fiers unnecessarily hyping products and fueling unfounded claims based on "personal preference and bias." And you mentioned refinement, R&D, and better components. R&D from a company with handful of guys pumping out IEMs every 3-4 months is largely insignificant. And you have high end company using cheap off the shelf BAs in their top models, so you cannot claim all high end sets are using quality products. Plenty of companies also use same resin type shells on their entire lineup with different colors perhaps with similar internals and charging customers in every price range. Big companies like Sony are probably one of the few that allot meaningful resources in manpower and capital for so called "improvements." Most boutique companies are charging exorbitant amount considering the overall cost of goods (product cost/R&D/etc), that simply cannot be justified. They're getting away with murder because uninformed customers are willing to pay whatever price for an insignificant gain or simply for what is only a difference in sound signatures.
Unless there is a standard way for a qauntifiable measurement of the quality of sound, it's all a "he said she said" game, largely based on personal bias.
As I've mentioned in my previous post, you're not missing much with a solid entry level IEMs. But in the end, to each his/her own and whatever floats your boat I guess.
Enjoy your music.
