Let's not confuse pingreed with Price Pumping!! I've seen it in other hobbies and no doubt we are seeing some of it here- listing items at higher than real market prices (sometimes under different ID's or in conjunction with other sellers) and pretending they sold (Listing it as "sold" or showing an auction as "sold" when the buyer is fake and/or backs out).
I don't think I need to explain why people do this, but if someone is looking to buy they may assume the prices are real and end up buying one of the persons price pumped listings because they think that's actual market when it's not.
Who the hell is going to buy a topper for $4500? Or any mass produced pinball machine for almost $40K? Most people I know that are wealthy are also smart enough to do the market research AND are usually cheapskates to boot.