There are audiophiles who wish make a distinction between genuine performance v. hyperbole, puffery, and sales duplicity. There are also audiophiles, I guess a lot of them, who want expensive status items to display to reflect their income and status without regard to performance, but claiming performance as part of the package.
This is true of all commodities, but the tease with audiophilia is whether the expensive items are actually superior and worth the price. Obviously, some are and some are not, and there are some expensive items with inferior performance that claim to be superior based on glitter, packaging and assertion.
These mixtures of marketing, status and generated sales mythology exist with all purchasable commodities, and when there is money on the table, there will always be misdirection and snake oil. Audiophile personalities tend to the obsessive/compulsive as well, which fans the flame of empty ritualizations and rank superstitions for various perceived or imagined benefits.
The ones who are resentful are those who want performance that is proportional to price, and to cut off price when the performance ceiling has been met, without superfluities, non performing 'fake' claims, or deceptive practices. Good luck with that.
Some people are fine with paying for audio items that are also art objects, as with watches, that they like just because they are nice. I bought my expensive tonearm because I loved it's tarnished brass looks/cocobolo and wanted to see that every time I put a record on the turntable. It also happens to perform to a high standard.
Caveat Emptor, but in the end, people can spend their money the way they like. The audiophile country club guys like to think they have the corner on sound quality with their veblens, but if that makes them happy in their audio museums, then I can't argue with happiness.
If a dealer can make these guys happy with expensive product by fanning the fantasy, then I can't argue with that happiness, either. I also like to see and hear the extreme installations, and SOMEBODY has to pay for all that stuff.