re: Just picked up a used Seagull dreadnought cutaway for 200 bucks,

I worked in a major advertising and marketing firm or 18 years before I opened my shop, and a multi-faceted ad and marketing campaign is more far reaching and more costly than one would think. According to Guitar World magazine's 2016 advertising card, one full-color full page ad alone was about $16K a hit. You get discounts in the advertising world for multiple placements, but you still have to consider you have a year's worth of issues, you have banner ads on the magazine's online site, you have other guitar magazines, you have other guitar mag online sites ... then add in the ad placements with Guitar Center, Musician's Friend, Sweetwater and all those other places we guitar players go online. Just effective blanketing via traditional and electronic advertising adds up FAST.

As for marketing endeavors, cutting edge business websites that are as big and good looking as Martin and Taylor's websites are expensive to create and update/maintain. You will need either an in-house department or a contracted outsider for not only the advertising agency artsy presentation but an IT firm to build it, tweak it for SEO, track usage statistically and tweak the sites visuals and functions accordingly ...

Promotional ... A major booth presence at two annual NAMM shows are VERY expensive to create and put on. Free giveaway guitars you periodically see in contests are free only for the winner.

That's just a few examples of ad and marketing costs that have to be absorbed in sales per unit. I'm sure I only scratched the surface.