Better support? Open Hardware means Open Hardware, and nothing more - you get the access to the schematics, documentation, sometimes also right to produce similar devices by yourself. You can expect greater hackability, definitely, but "Open Hardware" sticker means nothing in terms of support or reliability. It might be better, it might be worse, you can't tell.

The price in such projects is directly related to the production scale. How many EX3s, Spyders and ColorHugs have been produced? Open Hardware projects (especially the equivalents of already available non-free devices) are often costlier because it initially attracts only the people who really care about its hackability, which makes the yields low, which makes the prices high, which further strengthens that relation, and the circle is closed.

With userbase kept small, most users usually keep the firmware/software support just right enough to scratch their own itches.

Please remember that hardware is not software, and open hardware comes with completely different set of challenges than free (open) software and when it comes to hardware, you often really need to pay extra for the freedom - not just with your time, like we were used to with early FLOSS, but also with your money. If you choose a project because of its "Open Hardware" sticker, it's really more than likely that it will be costlier and it will be rough at edges, because it's usually harder to roll with such projects than with closed competitors and the ROIs are usually way smaller too. That's just how it is and there's nothing surprising about it; if you care about openness, you have to accept it, otherwise it will never get better.

As for software, DisplayCal is actually very well regarded in pro color and considered one of the only serious three choices, the others being CalMAN and the big dog being Light Illusions.

tl;dr : you get what you pay for.