I work at a company which supplies many (or most) of the F1 teams today, and costs can be quite surprising for street folks.. (don't ask.. it's way much more.. custom high end / tech jobs for that particular race car chassis). Dampers can get extremely complex, and we provide the ultimate dampers regarding technology, and more than the "mid stream" damper manufacturers...
There's more than looks, absolutely not to disrespect comments / replies.. it's all about getting the right damper for your car, and then having the adjustment, performance, durability and consistency at high temps on top of that for setup at different tracks. $5k is reasonable for street / track duty.
You can spend as much as you want, then again... that goes for practically any hobby eh' , and the point is.. can you appreciate the performance aspects or return on investment?.. if not, don't buy them, they may be overkill for your needs / skills..
Mike
PS - there's more info on our corp website to share rather than babbling, see
Dynamic Suspensions there are software downloads
Dynamic Suspensions , SpecFinder
Dynamic Suspensions and all sorts of info available to learn about dampers. We do not sell to the public, mostly dealing with OEMs and race teams. For example, see the DSSV Technology
Dynamic Suspensions, it's the most high tech damper in the industry / racing world today.
Other than this MuscleJunkie, I'm just sharing info and I can't sell you guys anything.. hope the reply helps!