It's this statement I take issue with:
To me, who am not in the market for a new sub at the moment, the REL has an immensely more compelling value proposition even when compared to competing products up and down the price scale, because they look good and I believe that they are decent products. The value of good looks and pedigree make them compelling to me.
Point is, you can't say that there is an objective value to a thing, as the thing will have other properties to it that the subject will find more or less compelling. Money has an agreed-upon value (i.e. we agree that a pound is a pound), but the value of a pound depends on someone's current economical situation, wants, needs and so on.
It comes down to the objective-subjective distinction, which I find is not particularly useful in questions of value. "But what does 'objective' and 'subjective' really mean?" is of course the correct response and many books have been written on the basis of that question. If 'objective' is the state of reality when it isn't being observed, I'm siding with those who say that what is by definition unknowable, we can't know. And if we only can know what we can know, we can't avoid putting our perceptions, biases, values, ethics and so on into the mix, making objectivity at least somewhat subjective.
But maybe this is a little off-topic…