I think part of the discussion is that there are no 'hidden gems' at fair prices. You have cheap products sold for cheap, and cheap products sold for a lot, and then you have expensive products sold for much much more. There is no good products sold for a fair amount, just bargains on commodity gear. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the 'middle market' is only such in price, not product quality.
I would say though that Audio Technica, while still commodity products, do seem to get better the more you pay up into the middle market. I think you get diminishing returns in their higher end range though.
I've had the same Audio-Technica ATH-500's for perhaps 14 years now. I drop them all the time too, like daily. I had to buy some replacement earpads as the pleather wore out, but that's it. Still perfect audio. I'd wager they'd have 10,000+ hours of use easily.
Most marketplaces are like that including food, lumber, fasteners (screws and nails and stuff) and clothing.
Cheap junk at cheap prices, cheap junk at medium prices for the aspirational shopper, good stuff at luxury brand prices, nothing else.
If you do woodworking you can buy inconsistently zinc plated insta-rust steel for $1 online, $5 (of which $4 is pure profit) for the same junk at big box stores, or about $50 at a specialty store for stainless steel and solid (not plated) brass that looks nice and will last a lifetime.
Another example: Cell phone chargers. The one apple ships with their phones actually follows all FCC/UL specs and is legal. Dollar store charger, not so much...
I would say though that Audio Technica, while still commodity products, do seem to get better the more you pay up into the middle market. I think you get diminishing returns in their higher end range though.
I've had the same Audio-Technica ATH-500's for perhaps 14 years now. I drop them all the time too, like daily. I had to buy some replacement earpads as the pleather wore out, but that's it. Still perfect audio. I'd wager they'd have 10,000+ hours of use easily.