The official price of the kit was not known until the kits arrived at RC America. Several online retailers posted estimated street prices on their sites and started taking pre-orders before the real price was known. Now you will see the real street price of the kit hit the retailers.
Please stop blaming the companies, the number 1 reason for the increase in price is our US dollar is in the toilet right now. Yelling at companies in Europe doesn't fix that, electing officials that will fix it does.