Marketing 101-- If you have a premium product you can charge and get a premium price. if you product is percieved to be one of the best you can charge a much higher price (to a point of course). If your product is just 5 % better than the compeition you can charge a disproportionate amount more--say 200% even though its only say 5% better. IF people were not actually paying his prices for a pipe or port job than I guarantee you he either would have lowered the price or said, " I cant make any profit at this lower price, so I'll just stop selling them>
So to answer the question why---as said earlier,-- because he can, meaning because people are paying him that amount.
PS...MY POWDER COATER IS SLOWER THAN H%$*.