Not surprising at all.

That's the way it's always been - anything that is labeled hobby immediately gets a highly inflated price compared to what it would otherwise be.

Let's go back a few years when people got fed up with the high costs of engines. Well, along came the low cost Quadra industrial engine and large scale models. All the components resulted in a larger model than the current popular sizes for less cash.

So what happened? The usual. Engine conversions were labeled as being specifically modified for hobby use. Now there was a great excuse to increase the price. And then they were allegedly designed exclusively for model use. Jack up the price some more. And then came the horsepower race, an equivalent to the mine is bigger than yours boast. Another good reason to charge more.

And so it goes.