Another one is Kobe beef. Real Kobe beef is from the city of Kobe in Japan and is only served in a handful of resturaunts in the US (I think 1 in NYC and a few in LV). So next time you see Kobe beef on the menu- you know it’s most likely a lie.
The biggest mistake we make with food and drink is to “want the best” instead of wanting the best for us. There is subsitute for trying lots of different types of food and drink and choosing what you like the taste of most, not what’s most applauded by experts or in vogue.
IMHO eating wagyu as a steak is a waste for essentially the reason you state. The fat softens at that temperature and because there is so much of it, the texture suffers. I'll take a long aged, lower fat, dry cured cut over that any day of the week. Where wagyu really shines is yakiniku. When it is cut thin, the fat has somewhere to go and the flavour and texture are amazing. This is one of the reasons why if you buy wagyu steak at a teppen yaki place, they will typically cut it fairly thinly.
Wagyu is not actually that expensive in Japan. I mean it's expensive, but not the ludicrous prices that people pay overseas. IIRC 100g of Shizuoka bara (stomach -- think the same cut as bacon) is about $6. Sirloin is up around $16. That's still nearly $70 a pound, but if you aren't making a steak or a roast (for which it is really completely inappropriate) it's fine. When I do yakiniku at home with my wife, between the two of us we eat 300 grams of meat and that includes the pork (Shizuoka black pork is amazing).
I really like wagyu, but there are other traditions for preparing beef that are just as good (in a different way) and not as expensive.
Edit: I forgot to mention that I typically make a roast here using thigh meat (momo) and bard it with stomach. That is a fantastic combination and I can make a 1 lb roast for less than $20.