I like to think of it as I'm not paying $100 for a well coded theme, I'm paying for security, testing, robustness, availability, and responsiveness.

I pay $45 for a theme I thought was a steal because of that. I pay $400 for a suite of themes and feel like I'm getting away with murder.

I'm not paying for good code, or even coding standards. I'm paying for the peace of mind that can only come from GREAT themes. From people who respond in a day to things like timthumb issues. From people who go and get security reviews of their own code, just to be sure.

And if that's $100? Damn, I got off light, because that's the one aspect of my site that every single person is going to touch.

My theme.