I disagree. We’re way past the open-and-grade phase of sealed product. A couple years ago it was a financially feasible move to buy a sealed 1st edition base box, crack it and grade the singles. Several people did it. Many more did it with Jungle, Rocket, Fossil, run down the list of WOTC boxes. Fast forward to 2019, I haven’t seen or heard of anyone paying $16k for a Skyridge box, 12.5k for 1st ed. Neo Destiny, etc etc just to crack and grade when the highest price chase cards hover around $2k in PSA 10.
Back when prices allowed for crack-and-grade, there was quite the jump in PSA 9/10 WOTC holos. The market for sealed product was directly tied to the market for graded singles. As sealed product prices have climbed, that link has disappeared. Want to get a PSA 10 Crystal Charizard? No way anyone’s touching a box to try to make that happen. There will still be loose packs, but anyone that isn’t weighing a WOTC pack has some abnormally strong morals. You take away the pack-fresh option, all that’s left is grading raw cards and buying already graded ones. Sealed product has become a completely different market than the graded singles. It’s not something that makes a lot of sense to me, but I guess it does to those who are dropping bands.
It’s still certainly a buyers market for many of the chase cards from WOTC-EX series in my opinion. Right now everyone’s so hyped up on modern print-to-oblivion Zards that nobody’s noticing that you can get PSA 10 Charizards from WOTC-EX series for LESS. I wouldn’t bet on that to continue. If I had to place us somewhere, I’d say the buyers market is not too long for this world.