Nothing is just a tool, not even a wrench. It's easy is to get ten bucks for a new tin of tobacco, and then another ten after that, twenty times over. Two hundred bucks at one shot isn't so easy. Cobs are okay but they don't give the smoking experience of a Briar, not even a cheap Briar. I'd spend the money on a pipe that'd last me a lifetime, a lot longer than twenty tins of tobacco. Some people like Cobs more than Briars. I don't get that. The same goes for OTC tobaccos over tinned.
Quality is real thing, even if we don't always recognize it. There is no virtue in being parsimonious. Money isn't sacred, and spending it isn't a moral crime.