I have a car that I can purchase autopilot for. It costs 7.5k. The HW is completely ready and can not do anything else, I wonder why they don't just give the software to me?
Apple always prices too high. Everybody complains about the price all the time, then two things happen: a lot of people buy it despite the price, and after a few years, all high end devices from others are priced similarly. Apparently a large chunk of the population accepts the price of high end phones as a fact of life. The fact that they buy it at that price is the ultimo proof of acceptance.
You can now get the full Kemper signal chain and Kemper tone without profiling, but with a small footprint, a few foot switches, an app as display, and it is substantially cheaper than a stage. Whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks is different for everybody.
I think the pricing is fair. I like my stage, but it is a chunky piece of HW to lug along to rehearsals. I may consider a level 3 player as you can transfer any performance from stage or toaster and have a few footswitches to go from clean to brown to lead.