I agree, I bought Viking appliances/venthood for our kitchen over 10 years ago and spent roughly 20k and that didn't include the fridge. We couldn't afford it so went with a different brand. It did take electric, carpentry and install work which I did most of myself our could have added even more.

Cooktop had issues multiple times and got fixed under warranty (extended that I paid for). It's finally been good but that's because it has all new redesigned parts put in it.

Double oven works like a champ, but the black printed on lettering is coming off.

The dishwasher was completely silent and worked perfect until it quit. Would have cost $1000 to repair and the repairman said it wasn't even the most likely to fail part which would be another $1000 so he recommended I toss the $4k dishwasher and buy another. I bought a GE for $1800.

Longish story, but all of that is sunk costs. We will never get any of that money back out of the appliances and most likely will have to replace the ovens and cooktop in another 10 years. If I did it again, I wouldn't buy the high end and just get something I'd plan to replace in 10 years. There was not any appreciable increase in quality going with the luxury models.

Now for pinball, sure new games are high. It's a hobby. It's also the only hobby I have ever had that is easy to liquidate at a decent return. You may/will lose some money on NIB purchases, but it's much less than any other hobby. Think guns/ammo, cars, rc cars (I do this too), golf, anything that is a luxury. All of those hobbies most money put in is lost as soon as you spend it and you must keep spending substantially to keep playing.

Pinball maintenance is fairly cheap after the initial purchase.

Pinball can also be an extremely cheap hobby. There are more and more locations that have pinball, simply go out and feed a few dollars in. It's pretty cheap entertainment.

This is a good point about living through the price increases. How many times in our lifetimes do we buy appliances, or even new/used cars? The damn pinballs multiply and I find myself selling some, saving money and buying multiples during a year from old clunkers to new ones.

With the new ones, even if we don't buy it we check it out and see the price every single time one is released. I couldn't tell you if the last car I bought or my appliances changed prices since I bought them. I'm assuming they went up, but it's not advertised in my face because I don't go drool over the latest appliance.

I can see the Uber request for a sedan to go pickup a pinball 3 hours away... No, I'll keep at least one that a pin can fit in, I just can't help running after one on a hunt from time to time.