I am sure the premium loads are given better treatment and higher quality control. Maybe that justifies the cost somewhat.
I have posted before that my uncle was a Ft Worth cop for 28 years and an investigator in the D.A.s office till his death. He was my shooting partner and hunting buddy.
As a cop he worked burglary, robbery, auto theft and homicide. I think he liked homicide best. He said most murders were someone mad at someone else. Once the killing was done they weren't mad anymore. They had got it out of their system. Robbery was dangerous. The robbers would fight sometimes because they knew if caught they were going to prison for a long time.
We talked about bullets and round performance. I quizzed him about it all the time about it. He told me 45 rounds were very effective. So were 357s. He killed one man on duty with a 38 special loaded with round nose lead bullets. He killed the guy with one shot. I asked about 22s. His words, "those are bad mothers. If they don't kill you outright then you die of pneumonia 6 months later in the hospital". He liked the 9mm with hot loads and some times carried one himself.
I asked about shotguns. He saw several shot with shotguns. Most were shot with #4 or #6 shot. He stated most of the time it was a home owner who grabbed their hunting shotgun and just loaded what they had on hand. He said at across the room it was devastating.
So that was sorta the point of my thread. You really don't have to spend a dollar+ per round to have effective ammunition. Putting the bullet (any bullet) were it goes is 9/10ths of the job.