At one point in my working career, I spent about a year working in Ferrari in North America, which included visits to the largest Ferrari dealers in the US and Canada. At the time, the various model Ferraris, for road (not race track) use, sold from about $125,000 (the "cheapest" model) to about $750,000.

An interesting thing about many of those Ferraris was that they weren't always reliable and dependable, and I spent several weeks doing a review of a number of those cars returned under state Lemon Laws. It was interesting to me that a number of my colleagues held the view that customers who bought a Ferrari were buying it for the "Ferrairi mystique", as much or more so than for Ferraris being reliable transportation.

Although most all of the fly rods that I use today are the so-called upper end brands , I look at many of these fly rods the same as I look at those $100,000+ automobiles. Those fly rod companies spend a lot of advertising $$ to create a lot of mystique about their rods to make you think their rods are worth the money, and perform better, when that ain't necessarily true, IMO.

p.s. Bet many of us don't know that a lot of Rolls Royce's leak oil either.