The hype is a good thing I would think Jay. All the items you were able to obtain( i'm sure for good prices) are now going for insane amounts. It's like buying apple stock on opening day. You can at anytime double or triple your money. Who cares who's jumping on the trend now. At the end of the day Ralph could care less about you and me.
That's only relevant if you want to unload pieces. If you want to continue growing your collection, then you are in the same boat as everybody else.
The money aspect of things is just a reality at this point - it was probably actually worse 5-6 years ago. The top tier pieces continue to go for insane dough, but a lot of the second-tier stuff in terms of pricing is probably cheaper now than then.
So, nowadays you gotta pay to play. It sucks, but it is what it is.
Sure, if you've racked up stuff back in the day, you could move something you paid much less for and get something high-priced back, but giving up a gem or paying a grip isn't exactly the ideal set of choices. I mean, it's not like you can replace the item you paid little for at the price you originally paid anyway, so it only works if you basically want to trade. And, of course, if you decide to cash out, you're winning financially. But that's the difference between a P-Wing and a share of Apple - when you bought Apple, the goal was always to cash out. If you were doing this when stuff was available on the cheap, you likely weren't doing this with cashing out as the endgame.
I feel what you are saying, but it's like yes and no, ya know. That said, when dudes do decide to liquidate, you don't see them complaining about prices at that point!
I think the better argument you could make about the high prices is that for "power" the market has remained relatively stable. So, yes, if you want something heavy now, you're going to have to come out of pocket. But, if you decide to move it later, you should be able to get most of your money back. So, to the extent you can consider things like this "investments" they are fairly stable assets. I prefer not to think of these items like that, but once you're dealing with a certain level of money, it kind of becomes a necessary evil to do so.