What model did you have before Bill? While I'm not happy with all the price raises, I haven't heard many complaints on the Vacmaster.
I went back and referenced my data and wanted to correct myself. Roughly ~2 years ago the regular price for the VP215 was $689 at webrestaurant, which I found to be the best price at the time. I know on sale it would dip into the high $500s. Today, that price is $999 on the site regular price. Like I said, I don't know what sale prices look like or if other sites do deep discount sales every now and then. I just know that the 'regular' msrp has jumped quite a bit. Roughly 45%, or 22.5% increase a year.
I ended up buying a Sammic and noticed that's gone up a good 17% as well, so there's that too I guess.