Hmmmmm. I'm in wholesale, I understand that Hi tech want to make money, I also suspect that this price issue is all about protecting some type of dealer margin (38%!), but they need to run a tighter ship to get away with this. All that said, you're all right, at $1300, they have priced themselves out of the market...
Custom wise, a local bloke has estimated 'about $600" for sports muffs and slightly larger mild steel pipes up to a new flange rear of the resonator, and a flange attached to the original so I can replace at will. We were both looking at the size of the pipes after the split and felt that they had to be restricting things the most at that point. I do like this idea because it is cheap, and if the sound is not for me everyday, I can swap them fairly easily... Obviously the risk is that you get no idea about the end result until the job is done though...