First off worth is what the individual puts on an item.
In my limited experience I started out in the sport with an out of the box XD and I shot ok with it and I soon graduated to a custom XD (everything you could do and still be production legal) made me feel better about my shooting, more confident, better scores, complements and such. That 1000.00 was worth it to me. Tinkered with it and was able to shoot limited with it and got hooked on limited. So I eventually purchased an STI Edge 1700.00 out of the box it was a pleasure to shoot. So that 1700.00 was worth it to me. Over the few months after the purchase I had some isues with the edge ftf, jams and stuff needless to say I was somewhat not pleased. So off to te gunsmith it went (knew it could be fixed my friends guns worked) apprx. 1000.00 parts and labor later. I pick up my gun and go to the range and OMG I would never have never believed that any gun could shoot so smooth and flat. I shot up about 500 rounds that day just lost in the pleasure of shooting a nice gun.This has been about a year now someware between 5000 and 10000 rounds and still a pleasure. The confidence came back, it's fun to shoot matches and I have since upclassed to B. So the extra 1000.00 was worth it to me.
Just my experience. To my gunsmith