I think a lot of posters seem to react rather aggressively.
I feel there are two categories of amp owners, those who are new to the audiophile business and found O2 as a cheap, well performing option. Of course, those who already own expensive equipment will look at the O2 with suspicion. It is natural and there's nothing wrong with that.
IMO ToTL not only means sound, it also means features. Amps like benchmark and Violectric have other options in sound and input/output, are much better built, and will last decades. All that commands high price, and I hope no one will argue on this.
Secondly, its a business, and someone's charging you for all the hard work they did in terms of design, manufacturing and after sales support. There's no proper definition of how much of a premium all these things add, so I'll leave it at that. Anyone selling you a product you cannot design/manufacture has the right to charge you whatever they want. And you have the right to refuse to buy it, simple.
DIY projects are cumbersome and sometimes impossible when it comes to supporting and troubleshooting.
And for those who say its cheap, its not really that cheap... the whole package cost me somewhere around 200 SGD (150$). I had to buy soldering equipment, multimeter, power supply, and some extra components in case I damaged them.
Ultimately, I think the problem is not the cost, but the superlative qualities some people ascribe to devices both cheap/expensive. If they are representatives of some brand, then its completely justifiable, but just as an owner it might not be very convincing. It is very difficult to find a correlation between the cost and performance, firstly because there's a whole lot of gray, and nothing's black or white, and secondly, because the definition of performance is rather loose.