My phone is the piece of equipment that gets the most use throughout the day so having every creature comfort & feature when using it makes sense to me. I'm not sold on the X but the price has almost no impact on my decision to purchase when it comes to phones.
My point exactly, if you use the phone for just 1 hour a day and keep it for 2 years then you pay ~$1.36 a day for the hardware. I use my phone for 2-3 hours a day so the cost is probably closer to $0.45/day. It makes perfect sense, even if you tack on Apple care it's still a good value (for me).