I don't buy that theory. The Incredible and Desire are just as similar as the HD2 and the Evo, yet both have a higher MSRP. The Evo is cheap because Sprint needs customers badly.
It would be awesome if $450 became the newish industry standard because as someone mentioned its both an awesome and awful time to be a tech happy person. Things are advancing so rapidly that its nearly a blinding pace. Techphiles would be happy because they could basically upgrade for $50-200 based on the value of their old phone every time something new they wanted released. The carriers keep people on their contracts happy, less people jumping ship for other phones, etc. I mean its silly when its virtually the same or cheaper to cancel your plan and resub (350 ETF+200 = 550 still < 599) than it is to buy a phone to activate on your current line.(Google Voice especially makes this very tempting, cares what carrier you have just use your GV number) That makes it too tempting to jump to the greener grass. I mean if your going to have to pay 600, why not jump to ATT for Super phone G? or Sprint for Y? At that point its a much more iffy proposition to keep customers. People accept it because thats the way it's been. Its nice to see that change at least in one instance.