Well, as for he pricing, the extra cost mostly applies to a small subset of the general public. The extra expense of buying phbone "a" over phone "B" is often argued without context. For example, "for people buying the phone outright" would be good context. A very small small percentage of folks do this compared to folks who either use a payment plan, or a 2 year contact (if still available for some). For the monthly payments, The N7 might be $5 or $10 more per month than the S7 or S7E, or perhaps a bit more upfront on a 2-year contact (not sure).
I do read in the tech blogs (and here in the forums ) lots of "is the price worth it" discussions, which most of the time lack any reference to the fact that the argument mostly is about buying a phone full price - which most people outside of these forums and tech blogs almost never do.
Price/value comparisons are important, but should also be given context more then they are I think ..