The price tag is exactly why you can't "buy directly" as you say. It's not currently intended for consumers - they understand the price point makes that a non-starter. Given that the COGs aren't going down anytime soon, I'm in complete agreement with that choice.

On the flip side, if you've got an actual business case for hololens, acquiring them is rather trivial. And quite frankly for the use-cases I've seen hololens deployed, $3,500 a pair is barely a rounding error in the project budget.