Dev Kit (and Tools) Pricing Disparities

I find it interesting (and, at times, frustrating) when I come across a vendor who wants to charge $500-$1500 for a development kit, particularly when it's a dev kit for an inexpensive microprocessor.  Of these I've run across, it's never been the case of "well, this kit has all sorts of things which warrant the high cost".  I've seen small startups, who need 4 or 5 dev kits, change their design/architecture decision because of exorbitant dev kit prices (seriously simple math: 5 x $1500 > 5 x $150).  Also, when the dev kit price is high, it makes one wonder what other costs may be lurking ahead (additional toolset license costs, nickel-and-dime structure for purchasing code/stack modules, etc.).  Certainly vendors with lower dev kit costs can have other fees, duh.  It's just a bit much to swallow paying a lot for a dev kit when the microprocessor device will cost you $10 or less.  And with the tools, I absolutely *love* it when a vendor has a free version for me to use that allows code of several KB in size to not require a license.  I think Motorola/Freescale did really well when, back in the day, they started offering CodeWarrior in a model like this.  Tactics like these make products more accessible to small startups, to poor college students, to the professional developer interested in tinkering.  Make no mistake, I'm *happy* to pay for good tools and advanced dev kits once my company has made a decision.  But it can be difficult these days to try and get approval for $1500 to buy a board to "try out" a candidate microprocessor, particularly when there's a suitable candidate with a $100 (or less) dev kit.  I'm just sayin'...