While I sympathize with feeling disappointed in having to pay for apps for use with such an expensive headset, I believe that its price would have severely restricted the number of free apps available for it in the first place. Developers are going to want to recuperate their investment, and that'd remain true even if it were possible to install whatever one pleased on it.

It's technically possible to develop on the simulator alone, but given that the simulator is confined to a 2D window on a computer screen I can't imagine that apps developed in this manner would be able to stand up to competition developed without such limitations.