I completely agree with you on prices for bikes being to high. I think the reason for it is that bicycles are considered luxury items. They cost so much because people are willing to pay more and there isn't enough volume in bike sales to justify large economies of scale that drive down the price - used bikes eat up that part of the market.

If you look at bicycle parts then it seems like half the parts get updated once or twice a decade. Yet the old stuff was mostly fine.