Oh please. Since Covid inflation, the price of everything has to go up. You can’t shut down the world and not expect prices to climb. Remember, they paid everybody full salary during their shut down, and the cost of goods is increasing due to supply chain issues. The backlog is still not fixed in almost every industry. PRS could be cranking out guitars, using unskilled labor, and becoming like the other giants In the industry. They are doing their best to maintain quality. If you want a CE like the old CE, buy an old CE. They used to be VERY close to the price of the core. They reintroduced it at a lower price point relative to the cost of core. That was intentional. My newest PRS was the most perfectly made core instrument I could have imagined. I buy them to play them, not to pontificate and show my ignorance. I have every price level, and they’re all better than comparable guitars from other companies. It took me 50 years of playing to figure that out.