I don’t know how long you’ve been in the hobby (Please don’t take this as a attempt to belittle or anything like that, just trying to make a point) but I think the hobby is a lot worse of in this regard then when I started some 17ish years ago.I think your definition of detriment is wildly different than mine. Just because some are price gouging a few corals does not mean the hobby is completely different. Those corals are still available for purchase, and it is only a few specific color variations. The rest of that species is still available at 'normal' prices.
Back then you could buy large colonies for around 40$ here in Sweden and I’m guessing even cheaper in the states. That way a new hobbyist could get something that actually looked like a reef in a relatively short timeframe, adding to the enjoyment.
Now days people are almost forced to start of with tiny and, relatively speaking, very expensive frags.
If I was just starting up I’m not sure if I would be to keen having to wait a year before my reef looked halfway decent.
Don’t get me wrong, I would still buy frags back in the day but that was after you hade fleshed out your tank with some nice colonies.
Just a side note, I remember when the tsunami hit in 2004(?), for about six months it was dang hard to get ahold of decent corals...I thought that was a bad time to be a reefer.