No, you are partly correct. But given that brands are status symbols, the cost is only one part of the status game. There are some other things which societies consider: Do you know which models are the "best" (high resale value / rarity / age / anything else) - sometimes the price isn't the only indicator. Also, do you know where to get the biggest bang for the buck? Do you know which places/markets/etc can have better models for lower cost? Do you know the right people so that you can get new information the quickest? Getting a rare model for a relatively lower price sometimes be a bigger social win than getting it for the standard price.

Where I live, you are a chump if you pay the sticker price - getting a valuable thing for much less than that is one of the indicators of how people judge your status. The fact that brands try to control pricing only makes the "game" more interesting.