Well obviously I had to make it short and sweet for this thread. I didn't want to get to the nitty gritty in a simple thread like this but if you insist:

There's a direct connection... the swaggiest gear in the cycling world is campy and correspondingly it is also the priciest.
Thus being harder to obtain and out of reach to some. Why? Because Campy deliberately inflates the prices via MAP policies as mentioned.

But before you start being offended, it's win-win for the selling players, even the buyers.

Campy gets to maintain exclusivity and people's desire/ interest in obtaining their gear. Adding brand equity to their name.
I'm sure there are many cyclists out there pinching penny's for their campy. The higher price makes people perceive of campy as being higher quality too.

The bike shop owner/ campy retailer, makes more of a profit margin, which of course is good as it is devoted to overhead and well everybody's got to eat.

Buyers get to have something that not everybody else has in terms of design aesthetic and functionality for reasons mentioned above.
In addition, they might/ most likely will get additional purchase satisfaction/ utility from the envy of those who do not. Which gives them justification for campy's higher price.
A good simple example is submissions to our very own bike porn thread; lots of campy equipped bikes for our viewing pleasure.


All of which MAP policies ensures nobody undermines this system which makes the cycling world go round.

TL;DR: #campyswag