I think my complaint boils down to the fact that my usage can't justify a $1000+ phone. Rather than stuffing ever more features and processing power into the iPhone, I'd like the progress to be spend on making the phones cheaper and have more battery life. For people like me the iPhone hasn't improved in 10 years, the last feature I sort of cared about was TouchID. So given that I'm stuck in a 2015 use case, seeing no progress, why shouldn't I expect prices to come down significantly?
You can buy iPhone 12 on the refurbished market for $300. Apple intends to serve your needs by making great hardware that lasts with long periods of software support.
