I find it funny that if one posted a C7 for sale on this forum 5 or 10 years ago (aside from the legal aspect), they could have asked $10 k easy. Now that they are available people are b!tching about a $500 premium. Lol.
Ultimately, everyone is free to do as they please with their money. (Emotive posters are free to stop reading here before I have to bust out a hurt feeling report.)
However, it is incumbent on an informed consumer, familiar with economic notions, to detect when a particular good's price does not collaborate with the market's supply and demand and to act accordingly. In this case, the AR market is in disequilibrium because it bares witness to an abundance of manufacturers. Therefore, there is an excess in supply. Excess supply drives prices down because the consumer can discriminate between individual producers and purchase the product that best meets his needs at the lowest price. It also forces prices down because producers compete against each-other to offer the lowest price through research and development (technology).
You are exactly right in your post. Ten years ago, this price would've been most reasonable and indeed, people would've thrown themselves at them and rightly so. Back then, fewer AR's were imported and those that were were sold to the consumer after half a dozen middlemen had upped the price through licensing/brokerage/price gouging, etc. Which meant that there was excess demand for them which drove up prices. However, given our current situation with IRG et al., it is fundamentally wrong to make that correlation because the situation has indeed reversed. The market is now saturated with AR's and quality ones can be had for much lower prices.
Therefore, a person persisting in buying these at $2,100 and $2,300 while AR's that reflect their specs can be had at $1,500 (if not less) is a perverted datum, to quote my old macro economics professor.
Caveat emptor, my friends.