Collecting is a funny game I suppose - I think we might have discussed that somewhere here before. I mean, what really makes something valuable? At the end of the day, something is worth what someone else will pay for it. People who collect retro computers speculatively probably dont have the same passion as people who collect them for nostalgic or historical reasons. These people probably also collect coins, stamps, phone cards... or whatever, and these are the people who probably push the prices up - mainly through trading amongst themselves I would guess. But what does price have to do with value? How do you compute the value of a retro computer - in my mind one day all this retro/vintage kit will become inoperable and un-repairable (near enough to original), simply through the process of time moving forward - how will this affect value? For speculators, I suspect it wont. For nostalgic or historical collectors, I dont know.
I'd class myself as a nostalgic collector of things I either used to have or really wished I had back in the day. With that being the case, I dont really have a big collection and am not likely to ever pay too much for something even if it was something I'd be really keen to play with. I definitely have a preference for using the original hardware but even now that is getting more difficult as failure rates increase. I would use software based emulators if that were my only choice, but fortunately there seems to be a new wave of hardware emulators coming which I'd be more than happy with (with no other choice).
My point? As usual I dont really have one, other than to say I cant ever see myself paying $5k for any Apple II, no matter how much I like them
Of course, I also dont hold any malice for the people who sell them (or anything else) at that price - after all thats how our system works