Yeah, retail prices for HDMI are insane. I think I paid like $5 for mine.
But what really drives me nuts are the expensive Monster cables and shit. You can spend over $100 on an HDMI cable if you want...and it means absolutely nothing. I mean, Monster cables are ridiculous even for analog stuff but at least there you could conceivably imagine that there theoretically could be a difference. With a digital cable like HDMI, either the signal gets there or it doesn't. There is just no way some expensive cable is going to change the picture quality. It's 100% a scam.