An interesting argument. As you said, 10´s are the only thing that counts in the mind of new fans, and many of the 10´s are upwards of 3K. At the same time though, this also goes for popular modern cards.
The weirdest example of this I can give is that a Moonbreon has roughly the same price as the Neo Discovery Umbreon, with, a moon.. The POP difference is astronomical.
I think, in the end, that at some point WotC will start to be more appreciated again (we are already seeing signs of this, I think) and that the 9´s will start to be picked up as well. Many of these 9´s are still only around POP 1000, which is very rare compared to modern.