The real spendy Petes are like a different brand, honestly. Or rather, were - my data is 12 years old. But I bought a Peterson 303, it was okay, and I was feeling rich, so I then bought the 140th Anniversary pipe for about double the cost of the 303. World of difference. The 140th had a much nicer stem (still P-lip, but good), the tenon was bevelled and polished, the whole thing just worked. I bought a bunch more petes of various sizes and shapes, and basically they are all mediocre or worse as smokers - gurgled like hell no matter what. Got rid of them all but the 140th and a "Professor", which smokes excellent too, but again, that's a pretty top-end piece.
Are all high-grade Petes better smokers? No. There's people who swear at some of the Holmes pipes, there's people who hate the little condensor in the Deluxe series pipes and House pipes... it's not a guaranteed win, and it's not like being expensive makes a pipe better - being BETTER makes pipes expensive because it costs more work to do. YMMV, yadda yadda.