Thats interesting Kayteg, I have a Generac 17KW standby unit for the house that has never had issue one. It's at least 10 years old and other than a new starting batter every couple years, it's been flawless.
I take it that an Onan wasn't an option at the time?
If I was in your shoes, I'd be pissed too.
One of my good friends has a Honda (like yours) and I tease him all the time about what it cost.
Personally, I believe before the competition got with it, Honda and Yamaha had the market cornered and could set their price point at whatever they wanted it to be. Thats all changed and I see Honda came out with a lower cost cradle type inverter just to stay competitive.
Lots of players now.
The only thing that I'm leery about with the HF Pred Inverter is parts. If you buy one and it pukes right away you can exchange it, however, down the road a bit, after the initial exchange period is done, because there are no parts or service centers available, you have a rock and even good priced rock is still a rock.
Being enviromentaly correct, I hate landfilling things like that and I'm pretty much electronically challenged. Mechanically, no problem.