Agreed, I cringe too, but I shop carefully and save my coins and eventually get the appropriate item, whatever it costs. Note I said appropriate, not necessarily expensive.

Story time. Throw another log on the fire...

Two of my climbing buddies and I volunteered to help search for three Boy Scouts gone missing on a local mountain in a ferocious and unseasonal storm. Using snowshoes we were dispatched to a forest service cabin high on the slopes, from which we could reach the summit and determine if they had gotten that far. When we got to the cabins, one of my companions had frost nipped feet, and the other was totally exhausted. I was in relatively good shape, and was able to get a fire going, produce hot liquids and food, etc. The reason for this was my recently purchased, insanely expensive Swiss mountaineering boots which cost me the princely sum of $35. That was a lot of money in the 50s for a college student, but those boots proved their worth. I realized that night, as my friend tucked his frosty feet into my bag for rewarming, that, indeed, expense is in the eye of the beholder. It is just that perspective changes radically when you get into the wilderness. Money doesn't matter there.