I completely agree.
600 is insane for the PS3. However, picking them up used (at least where I live) is fairly easy, and knocks a good 200 bucks off the price. I got my PS3 (still in the original packaging, manual not opened) for 44,000 yen (about $390). There are still no games I want to play on the system yet, but I'm enjoying the large number of free demos and playing all my PS2 games in HD.