I'm a bit too young to remember prices in the 80s, although I did play a hand-me-down set of Eye-2s in high school in the 90s. If I recall that was (and is) the best selling set of irons of all time, in a unique time, and not really a good proxy for today. No, I'm talking about seven years ago when I could get a full set of i-series for just over half of what they are now. Just a few years farther back and Ping was offering i-series for roughly $700/set and Ansers for $1,400/set. I remember drooling over the Ansers (eventually played a set for a few years), but thinking that those were for the rich guys. Modern i-series HAVE been the affordable set. It does seem to me like a poor value, especially if they're priced at or slightly higher than what have always been premium sets, i.e. the Titleists and Mizunos. That goes double for it being a cast iron. I'm actually in the market this year, and after a few decades of playing Pings they'll definitely be on the list. I'm just saying that they'd have been a shoe-in if they were a couple hundred a set less than the Titleists. Now it's open season.