I don't find it that expensive compared to other high end laptop, for similar specs it seems to me Lenovo Thinkpads or Apple products are more expensive.
For me the only problem is that I've been used to Lenovo Trackpoint in the middle of keyboard, and going back to a trackpad where you need to move your hand out of the keyboard when you want to use mouse is a big setback. So many non necessary hand an arm movements.
You have an already shipped AMD batch 7 in France? They haven't even processed the payment on my card…