I assume a person or small team is trying to make up for the time spent desiging this?

You can't just add up all the components, add 10% on top and expect a price level that competes with Apple. Looks like a hobby project to me and there is no harm in supporting the creator.

Yeah I'm not sure about that either... All the parts look FDM printed too which is definitely way cheaper than that if you already own a printer. Perhaps they had some company print the parts?

Honestly for that kind of money you're getting kinda close to having them SLS printed which would be much sturdier and look nicer...