Mate, i think you need to stop crying poor for Apple, they have literally more money than they know what to do with in the bank. I'm not even joking, Steve Jobs even asked Warren Buffet what to do with all the money they have in the bank - because he didn't know what to do with it.
I agree, a price premium is necessary for R&D, etc. But not to the level we see. And not for brain damage "R&D" like the touch-bar, the butterfly keyboard, etc.
2006 - 2015 or so Apple's products were fairly priced. Not any more.
Where's all this fabled R&D money going on the Mac side? $1000 monitor stands? Keyboards that don't work? All the new stuff is in the iOS devices, and they can fund the R&D with the profits from that division quite easily.