I was just at Rick Hinderer's place last Saturday for a GTG, and we spent the afternoon in his shop watching Rick grind a custom spanto blade and build an XM-18. As you may know, for the Gen 3 knives, Rick makes everything in house except the blades. The blades get waterjet cut, heat treated, and double disc ground by outside shops. If Rick can pay for those guys' profit margins and still deliver the knife for $385, then it seems to me that Jerry could do it for not much more. Even assuming that INFI costs more than any other steel, Busse can probably do every single operation in-house, which keeps the cost down. We've seen pics of the multiple CNC machine centers he has. So a Busse folder for ~ $550 seems plausible to me.
I don't need a $500 hard use folder, but that's just me. Let me ask you folder users, how tough does it have to be? Are the XM-18 or Strider folders tough enough? Short of prying open car doors, can you break one of those?