> Am I missing some profound piece of engineering that warrants this price?

Liability insurance and FDA approval. If you've ever seen the words "For Research Purposes Only" on equipment, that's an indication of profitable device, but small market.

I know people who sell equipment to IVF (in-vitro fertilization) labs that are insane about safety, so their equipment is certainly good enough for general use. However, their volume is sufficiently low that it's just not worth the monetary expenditure given that they have an out simply by labelling things correctly.