My take on the Audiophile ecosystem:
There is a solid, yet subjective, basis behind the perception of better looking and more expensive gear sounding better. More pleasing visuals enhance the perception of more pleasing sound. It works the other way around too: for instance, good noise insulation and low-distorting sound system subjectively increases car's interior quality experienced visually.
On this solid neurophysiological basis, some (most?) vendors catering to audiophiles built a house of cards, carefully designed to look, sound, and feel like a temple of "absolute sound". It is held together by blatant disinformation and other psychological warfare staples. If we look at the elements of this house closely, we would see absurd, ridiculous, and puzzling elements, along with some that actually make sense. What is the general plan of that house?
First of all, the community of vendors needs to filter out non-customers, and thus increase the concentration of pre-qualified leads at the location and time of potential sale. The absurd elements are important for that filter. Same principle as the one utilized in fraudulent emails from unknown senders claiming that the recipient received a multi-million inheritance etc.
Then the vendors need to create an illusion of value. This is achieved by a two-pronged approach - the "fork". On the high end, there are well-built yet ridiculously overpriced products. On the low end, there are reasonably priced, yet ridiculously cheaply-built ones. Not so many customers are actually buying either. Yet the "fork" steers them in the direction desired by the vendors - decently built and moderately overpriced products, which are the most bought by audiophiles.
The vendors also need to create an illusion of exclusivity and cutting edge. Puzzling products serve that purpose. Here we encounter exotic materials scientifically known to be inferior in their acoustic function compared to much cheaper ones. Also, weird, long ago failed or obsolete designs, ancient enough to be forgotten by most people, and thus suitable for marketing spin painting them as fresh revelations.
Finally, there are honest-to-God vendors, such as B&W and Benchmark, whose products usually make perfect sense at the price points they are asking for. Those are absolutely necessary components of the house, lending the air of legitimacy to the whole enterprise. The composition of the audiophile shows, audiophile magazines, audiophile Web sites etc. is carefully managed by highly intelligent yet not necessarily highly ethical people.
In addition to consistently refusing doing any side-to-side statistically significant comparisons, audiophile sales representatives were caught multiple times meddling with sound level and equalization to "prove" the "superiority" of the products they were pushing. Some were literally using magic tricks to fool and convince their unsuspecting customers. Others abolished well-established laws of Physics and invented brave new ones.
The most often heard complaint from the audiophile vendors is that their market has been shrinking as of late. I think this happens not in small part due to the success of Web sites such as Audio Science Review. Keep up the good work ladies and gentlemen!