Thanks for all the answers to my rant. I'm a regular customer at iStockphoto, but for some reason I wasn't aware of higher-end options like Getty. Based on some of the comments is this thread it seems to me their business model is like "Enterprise Sales", some guy landing on their page getting a good price is not how their model works. That sucks, because I wouldn't mind paying 5-10x over iStockphoto for a great picture, but 50-100x is too much.
Enterprise sales is exactly right, with the enterprises being the biggest ad agencies, media companies, and corporate cients on the planet.
A lot of these folks are keenly interested not just in the images themselves, but also in the contexts and markets where they may have previously appeared. Often, the fewer associations an image has, the more likely they are to buy it. And if they want to ensure that no one else buys something they're working with, they'll pay very substantial amounts for full exclusivity.
