Quote - Since they are aimed at professional market , where you may be paying a few hundred dollars an hour thay are not overly expansive.  For product visualization just a few figures scatterd around is enough.

 

I can expand on it a little more as well...

Often they'll pay more for certain figures, if they can get exclusive rights to it done on commission. 

They pay that much for it on the presumption that the item is as close to perfect as one can get. Referring to the previous experience, I watched Intel shell out $10k for a head mesh - not a body... just the head. It was of a unique human being; completely textured, shaded, with displacement maps, specular maps, etc. It was made of nothing but quads. The polycount was almost perfect: high enough to give amazing detail, but low enough to be CPU-friendly.

You'd be amazed at what the going price is for some items, expecially if the items fit business needs and standards...