My response:
1. You really should get what you pay for. It should be a linear correlation.
2. I am not paying for the mistakes of brewers that do not know how to brew. Why should I?
I'm guessing you don't work in marketing.
Price, in an open market, is largely determined by supply and demand. Demand can be "inelastic" (clean water, toilet paper, gasoline, the things people will buy at any price) or "elastic" (things people want rather than need).
For items for which demand is elastic, demand can be created by marketing ("it's new! Improved! Buy now, supplies are limited!") or, more subtly, by word of mouth.
Craft beer definitely has elastic demand. Nobody dies if they don't score a six pack of Heady Topper. If the proverbial "everybody" is saying "You have to try Heady Topper. It's da bomb", there are enough folks who just have to jump through how ever many hoops they have to, just to find out for themselves if that beer is as magnificent as "everybody" says it is.
It doesn't matter if the beer (or whatever product) is X times better than an alternative, or even better at all. All that matters is that a certain number of folks will stand in line and pay the asking price, just to find out what the hype is all about.
If the product really isn't that great, the people who made a BFD out of it aren't going to admit they were wrong. Marketing relies on some fundamentals of human nature (not willing to admit they've been hosed being one of those), so the hype goes on, even if the product doesn't live up to its overblown reputation.
For everyone who, like Mr. Stout, presumably, won't pay a premium for an inferior product, there is someone who will pony up the price of admission because, well, that's what all the Cool Kids are doing.
Welcome to Marketing 101.