The real one is the centerpiece of our entire house, and a treasure. It definitely has a quality and beauty that the machine-made ones don't possess. They're one-of-a-kind works of art. At some point it was repaired and there's a little difference in the dye colors where the patching was performed. Knowing it has some history really adds to the feeling of value. It's an antique you can walk and lay down on. If our home caught fire, I would probably grab my computer and that rug and leave the rest to burn.
It completely transformed the room we put it in and brought it grace and character. The machine-made rugs we put furniture on top of and are already starting to fall apart in places, even the nicer one we paid lots of money for before we got smart.
If you're patient and look around, you kind find them at fairly steep discounts, and now that the market is opening up, I expect the prices to drop even more. Our rug was appraised at something north of $15k, but we bought it for less than $2k. Quick checks on the internet show me similar rugs for around $6.5k. (here's one that looks superficially like ours http://esalerugs.com/red-palace-rugs-kashan-persian-rug-2219...)
When we decided to get a rug, we went through lots of research and shopping, finally decided on a Persian-style rug and hit rug markets and dealers all over our area. For us at least, the color schemes of the made-in-Iran rugs (over the often cheaper Pakistan, Turkish or Afghan handmade rugs) really was unmatched in hitting our taste.
Sorry if this sounds like a commercial, but these really are special objects. It's a shame that there's so many middle-men in-between the weavers and the buyers, I'd much rather have paid the weavers directly, but stupid global politics get in the way. I'm very excited for the slowly thawing relations with Iran, there's so many really wonderful cultural things I'm hoping come exploding out of that country.