Probably worth bearing in mind that the Nerve was far from being an $80 marker when it was released!
I can't actually remember exactly what the original price was at the time, but I believe that it would have been somewhat comparable to that of a new Ego.
The Nerve is an old, out of production, high-end marker, and not as widely accepted as some other markers (in no small part due to the high price), but a high-end marker none the less. It's cheap now - almost absurdly so - but it was never conceived as being a cheap marker.