I understand exactly what you are saying since im 
in the same boat. I have not seen any from the 
series i collect in over six months and those i 
have would only duplicate what i do have. And 
even sketches are super inflated as well to the 
point that i am somewhat confused on the price an 
item should be, is it based on past experience or 
on future rarity. I also noticed this past 
weekend while looking over my records that ive 
picked up a bad habit of getting lesser items to 
fill the void. And even those raise my eyebrows 
at times at the prices they are commanding. My 
New Years resolution is to stop over compensating 
>_<, since this only depletes my funds for that 
rare opportunity for that something i really 
want, along with the overly zealous competitors 
you mentioned. And it coincides exactly to the 
time that you mentioned. I have a bad feeling 
that a disruption was caused by the advent of CG 
that will only get more exagerated. I think i and 
the rest of us will need to adapt to this new 
environment.