Siri's behind on a lot of stuff. They have issues gathering all parts of their organization and centralizing efforts for A.I. due to their org. structure, so it's going to be a while before Siri can catch.

On the pricing front – I'm not very surprised that there's a bump. They've always been on the high-end of everything they release (Apple TV is 2.5x-3.X other competitors from Google/Amazon).

I think the main reason they played down the "smart" part is because they know Siri is behind.

Sonos will have Alexa in it and most people can't tell the difference between a better speaker over another in terms of sound.

It just ...looks better.