Regarding your first point about MSRPs, that is proabably more true these days than back then. The Internet ushered in a whole new playing field.

In my day, our flexibility on price varied depending upon manufacturer. For example, we could discount products like Adcom and Denon, but not boutique lines (e.g. Conrad Johnson, Sota, Apogee, etc.) Doing so ran you the risk of being dropped by the manufacturer.

I think there's still a bit of that around, for example, I'm eyeing a Bel Canto amp to replace my Adcoms. Trying to find it discount anywhere has proved futile. It looks like their price is firmly locked, whether you buy it directly from them or a dealer. Not sure how Outlaw would behave if in the same siutation.

Your comparison to the Atlantic Technology and Sherbourn SSPs are probably the best indicators of a potential storefront price.

When I was considering the 970, my brother cautioned I was replacing my once pricey stereo preamp with the (cheap) Outlaw; clearly, it is not a 1:1 price comparison. In hindsight, I should have told him it was a $1,500 SSP.