I've seen the nonsense 'avg cost to develop app' metric before, put it in context, there are a huge number of apps that use the same code with different data.
Also claiming that apple doesn't value the actual apps is ludicrous given their app specific advertising campaigns of 'There's an app for that'.
Marketers are spending money on iDevice apps at the expense of improving their mobile Web sites that everyone with a smart phone can access.
True. I guess it's mostly a matter of visibility rather than using the appropriate technology.
App business is a bubble? Nah, I don't think so.
As for using the mobile browser instead of the app. I'm curious why people aren't just making apps that load up their site. They will have a universal platform for app development and get to say, "We now have an app on X that allows you to use our product."