The last #1 CGC 9.9 copy that was up for public sale went for $240, the one before that for $199.
When NewEnglandGothic was selling off the last parts of his registry, he was blowing out non-key 9.9s for $30 and had to drop the price to $25 before they sold.
Apart from someone hitting a $250 BIN on a #1 CGC 9.8 yesterday (hmm ... I wonder why), 9.8s have been selling for $100-150 pretty steadily - in this day & age of freshly-released Image #1s hitting $100 straight off the bat, I wouldn't exactly call that "big $$$".
I didn't account for board sales, I only did ebay reverse search.
I can't disagree with anything you've said, but I'm kind of irritated I was not informed of a $30 9.9 slab sale.
That was a fun thread.