Personally, I find Durian's videos quite extreme - bloke is definitely in love with the type of bikes he's ridden when he started cycling - anything before that is crap, everything after that is crap. Makes some actually good points around cycling being all about enjoyment, but appears to reject the idea of someone enjoying something else than him. I can't really respect that.
I would absolutely agree with what the OP says though. New road bikes are definitely not good value and the industry push for some technologies is questionable, at best. You want something good - you have to shop around and get the components yourself.
As for £15k bikes - this is bonkers. Don't get me wrong - I completely understand that if you want an absolute top of the line, aero and light road bike with best possible quality components, you'll have to pay up. But £15k is excessive, to say the least. £7-8k - sure - that's what the flagships used to cost (adjusted for inflation) before the industry completely lost it.
In the long-run, one of the best things a company can do, is grow the potential customer base. You don't do that by hiking the price, especially of entry-level stuff, and making things more complicated than they should be. This makes the 'first step' steeper, and in the end hurts your profits.
The market will correct itself, it will take a while though
