You're suggesting to people that they should buy research use only chemicals and attempt to compound them at home? That is incredibly irresponsible and dangerous.
People already do exactly that, and with some basic knowledge (which should and probably will be in 20-30 years a common knowledge) it's much safer than one could expect.
Of course, it'd be ideal if they wouldn't need to worry about it and could leave this to a person who is guaranteed to be more knowledgeable in doing that, but with all the over-regulation burden, drug patents, drug schedules, it's not happening. Example of that is, precisely, the price of this. It could literally be 2000x smaller if we only get rid of that burden, which was created to give some people profit. And if we subside that with taxes, these taxes go to the pocket of a gatekept and protected-by-the-state manufacturer. That's not how taxes should even work, they should benefit the society instead.
TL;DR: This is a much wider issue.
From what I understand - may be wrong - the 2000x has more to do with IP protections than production safety.
By the way, I'm not even sure does IP protections itself apply here. Both parts of this fixed combination drug were known for quite some time (particularly trospium chloride is very old, also often used in research settings). But if they would apply (if the molecule itself was patentable as someone's intellectual property), they would be additional HUGE problem. But what constitutes (or creates) that "2000x" problem here isn't even that, this is most likely the FDA regulations regarding drug approvals and so on, exclusively.
It could be a good idea to wonder about, what if FDA as a governmental agency limited itself to "trusted" information campaigns to the public on efficiency of all medicines, but not doing anything which touches, notably, revenue matters of pharmaceutical companies (as that's why, in my opinion, corporations actually lobby for big FDA influence, they can make more profit off that).
Also, definitely FDA in that model wouldn't be setting themselves as an "authority" for "approvals" of drugs and so on, which for my taste is completely contrary with both the whole putative role of (federal) government, and further, with the Western values (as I outlined in my previous comment) themselves.
That new role and "definition" of FDA would be exactly akin to what NIH is doing even now in the area of nutrition. If you don't know what they do, look at the USDA FoodData Central or all the micronutrient factsheet they publish - it's my go-to resource when I wonder anything about food.
But the FDA role would then be like that, but in regard to man-made substances of medicinal use, as opposed to these occurring in abundance in nature (which, in a great simplification, when they're essential to a human body, we consider "food"). And DEA's complementary role here would be to go after manufacturers who do not label their products according to the truth.
In the present information age, you don't need to give them such wide powers to avoid precisely what you're afraid about avoiding.
However, your point made me realize that, in fact, probably what you generally described as the most capable individuals, are probably even now mostly immune to the harm which FDA creates as "side effects" of what they consider good. So, if we assume that FDA's action don't "touch" them in most ways, should these most capable individuals be trying to reform it? But I don't think that the FDA's action don't affect the most capable individuals much. We're all one society and even if it doesn't influence them much directly, it still very much does so in more indirect ways.
Also think, why do you think that "predators" even exist? It could be either evil nature of the humankind itself, if we assume there is such, or something else creating a place for them. If it's the first one, we're fucked regardless. But maybe it's not?