there's a flipside to it.
any place that maintains a store front has to obey pretty rigid rules of retail in order to stay alive. if they can't make 100% markup on it, it's barely worth carrying due to overhead. i know with play it again sports their standard mark up is 150% (e.g. buy for $4, sell for $10).
the pinch comes in with the future of dedicated disc golf retailers. the standard $7/10/13 pricing scheme is below 100% markup and so online stores with no storefront can succeed much better than any store that bases its sales on walk-in retail. the other thing they offer is immediate gratification and being able to hand pick your discs. there's so much variance out there amongst runs and molds that often this is necessary to get what you want.
i agree that $17 is too much to pay for champion on a regular basis, but i am not so opposed to say, $15. the more that places are able to make money on disc sales, the more places that will sell discs. the more places that sell discs, the more exposure the sport gets. the more exposure the sport gets, the more courses will go in. the more courses in, the more players, the more players, the more future money in the sport, the more future money in the sport, the more interest from corporations to get involved, etc. and so forth.
the super america/speedway gas station chain stocks discs in my area and they are priced $8/11/15, which imo is a pretty fair price for the convenience aspect of grabbing a disc 5 blocks from the course.
as for pricing in the long run, the real stabilization won't really happen until the majority of golf discs are manufactured in china, indonesia, malaysia, mexico, etc. but i'm not sure that's the best thing either. similarly, the price of plastic fluxes with the price of oil.
as for pricing in the short run, honestly, prices in disc golf have moved slower than inflation. in 2000 it was ~$7-8 for DX and ~$9-11 for kc pro/elite pro and $14-15 on the launch of ce/z. i believe the last real jump happened in 97-98 or so when everything moved up like $1 on average.