Why do people always forget that you have to pay people to do things?
I get it when people ask me to make things for them, their interests wain after I tell them to either provide the designs or they need to be paying £10 an hour for CAD time. The thing I'm currently working on has already taken over 50 hours of design work, will take over a week to 3D print the parts and at least a week to assemble them and the associated control electronics.
The problem is we are living in a world where we expect thing the next day for nothing, maybe an issue that things like amazon prime has caused (Yes I know you pay the monthly subscription however much that is) and small companies don't have the bulk buying power to drive down that cost of things like packaging. We need to be supporting the small guy, like RevEd, as they provide things that the big guys simply can not provide.
Also rival platforms - you mean like arduino? that is not the case. their boards are quite expensive to get one that isn't a bad knock off, and believe me there is a lot of them. Then there is teensy, they are on another level, a board with a 600mhz processor that contains multiple i2c buses, CAN buses, serial ports, built FPU, built RTC and more for £25 - that there is bargain, downside is, it's harder to develop for. Then STM32, where often basic programmes require things like system clock setup with the same cost outlay as arduino.
overall RevEd are pretty cheap for what they provide by comparison and its more of a flaw of the postal system and the systemic forgetfulness about paying people to do things.