Good software is virtually free, regardless of its purchase price, because the payback dwarfs the investment. If your time is worth something, you’d be rational to pay hundreds of dollars for applications you use every day.
An interesting and usual point of view, but one that’s spot on none the less: “good software pays for itself”.
Apps like 1password, Alfred, Sparrow, TextExpander, Adobe Lightroom come to mind. Think about how much you use these and how much time they save you (or how much easier they make certain tasks).