Probably trying recoup some of the R&D money, like all new tech theirs price premium.

I don't think anyone is 'forgetting' the R&D costs. For me it translates into 'am I going to notice a huge difference by spending twice as much money on a Samsung SSD over a Crucial' for example? Simple answer, no. Sure I can run AS SSD all day long and be super duperly impressed that the Samsung shows better numbers but the difference in price is too high to justify the outlay for that privilege. Crucial are doing the right thing at the moment by trying to get SSDs to a price point where everyone can enjoy the advantages. On top of that Samsung don't have power loss protection which is a deal breaker for me and one of the main reasons I always buy Crucial drives as that has saved me an RMA on two separate occasions. Samsung have every right to recoup their R&D costs but charging twice as much (or more) for a comparable drive is not only greedy, it's stupid. Of course, it's no secret that Samsung has slowly been turning into Apple for quite some time now. Idiotic premiums because it has Samsung written on the box. I don't care for Apple doing it and I don't care for Samsung's attempts either.

Their PRO lineup is not meant to compete with these drives. The EVO lineup does that currently.