I've lost whole colonies of zoas while all the rest of the zoas and corals in my tank were fine. Why? I don't know. And the were zoa's that I had had for over a year.
I do know that the wholesalers are bringing them in and sell them all at the same price. It's US, you and I, that have made the inflated market what it is. Ebay is one of the places that as done this as well.
Will it ever stop and be resonable again? I doubt it. It will be a fad just like all the other corals that have come and gone. The LFS/Internet sellers/Reefers are just trying to make a fast buck while thay can.
Tell me how you can justify a rock at a wholesellers for 10 bucks and that same rock gets broken into about 4 peices and sold for 40 bucks a piece at the LFS. Then you get the reefer who snags them all up, breaks them down into 2 or 3 poylop frags and sells them for 20 bucks a piece. It's just like a drug distribution network, the lower down the line you go, the less pure it is. If we kick the habbit, the prices of the "drug" will go down.