In terms of negative discussion and mud slinging -
- it's a lot worse on comic book forums, 
especially if you tried to speculate or 
advertise. They seem to enjoy the target 
practice. ^_^;;   

I suppose that some of the negativity has to do 
with money -- let's face it, money is always a 
volatile subject, especially when it comes down 
to things people collect. You'll always have 
people on different sides of the topic. Is it 
wrong to discuss something like this? If 
someone's patently wrong about something -- 
hopefully someone else will point them in the 
right direction. 
 
Granted, prices naturally go up when : 

1. Supply is low. 
2. Demand is high. 
3. A combination of the two. 

I'm convinced that most people on this forum 
understand this principal. There was a rather 
polite conversation about the price of Utena 
cels. I'd argue that someone also understands the 
market when they point out a 150% mark-up, from 
$10 to $25, on a cel bought from another person's 
website. (You can't say the supply has decreased 
to justify the mark-up, since it's still out on 
the open market.)   
 
As for the discussion concerning Max -- as I've 
said before: if he's simply buying off of a 
website, I'd like to save him the time and 
trouble of scanning and the putting the cel up on 
his website, by going to the source. Hey, if he's 
buying from there, why can't I?