I like this post. Anyone who ever buys fish at Petco absolutely must quarantine them and treat them for ich. All of their tanks are infected in my opinion.I still don't get why these threads get started. Things can be cheap if you try. I build everything myself or buy old used equipment. Like I found an old PM skimmer for 100 bucks at a LFS. Or I got a broken vertex zeovit reactor for less than 100 bucks. Convert old tanks into sumps. Build my own stands. I buy the cheap brown corals because give them enough time and they color up real nicely. As for fish, I just buy the cheap ones because they are just as pretty as the expensive ones. Heck, my lawnmower blenny has so much character and cost so little. I like to shop at Petco even though we have really nice LFSs here. Sure things don't look great, but you can typically nurse the fish or coral back to health if you know what you are doing. It's so satisfying nurturing/nursing something to health and seeing it bloom.
In the end, the rising prices of "rare" corals will go up because demand causes it to go up. Like diamonds. Those "fancy" tenius aren't rare. But they are perceived rare and people will pay for it. Krakatoa? Looks like any other paly to me. But people will pay the price for instant satisfaction and for the right to say they own something rare. Like the crazy people that buy the new iPhone the second it comes out. You own any coral long enough, you'll see the colors change over time. I really like gorgonians. Cheap, beautiful, and easy to grow.