I don't really like the "today's dollars" comparison because it only contextualizes currency value at moments in time. It's definitely not what something would cost if made today vs 35 years ago, nor does it equate to what it would actually sell for today. ProfD points out the other factors that are much more important than when it was made.
And I have stopped judging things as expensive or overpriced. Those terms are relative, but everyone seems to use them to gatekeep.
That said, in the past 5 years or so, the O.G. celeb inventors in the synth game seem to have created (or recreated) that tier of instruments that are priced into the rarified air of studio and pro-only category. The funny thing is that most studios are deep into software and true vintage, and almost all of the Moog One and high end Prophet owners I know are not professional musicians, and only one of the 8 people actually work in the music industry. These seem to be targeted (if they even targeted a market at all...the VC guys must have done SOME diligence, right?) to the PRS guitar crowd...corporate attorneys and dentists who are weekend warriors and Soundcloud monkeys. Nothing wrong with that at all. I appreciate that their disposable income continues to fund these pioneers. This is their pension.
I don't think I'd entirely agree there. I know quite a successful sound library composer with both a Prophet 10 and various other new analogs he regularly uses with his software, for instance, and here's a recent example of the Moog One being used in a film soundtrack :
