A pair of rigid plastic Bluetooth headphones that are easily damaged or lost for $159 is consumer price gouging. You do the math.

Talking of the rigidity of the shells on Apple headphones in general, they aren't designed for everyone's ears. I have fairly small ear canals and those things physically hurt to use. I much prefer a nice pair of Philips with gel caps.

Plus the cord to me is actually a good thing ZIMHO, it provides some weight and also helps me stop losing the things.

Courage my ass, it's them simply trying to milk more $$$ from people who can feel more superior from buying salvation at no matter what the cost. :-)

Anyway just my 2c

2. $160 might be too much for the AirPods, but I don't know that anyone can really know that yet. Whether they are worth that or not really depends on the functionality and sound quality, and I haven't really seen any reviews on that yet. What I do know is that $160 is really on the low end as far as good headphones go. My Jaybirds were $150 when I got them and my ATH-M50xs were also around $150.

The vast majority of people I see in public use the standard Apple earbuds. I suspect that the percentage of people with expensive cans is very low, and that most people that buy the iPhone 7 will continue to use the stock lightning earbuds.