Here are 31 38/44's of various types. Not one of them cost $3,000. Most of them costs under $1000 and many costs less than $500. Not even my Registered Magnum costs $3000.
Not sure where you are getting your dollar costs from but maybe it is just a local thing.
I would say that while the 38/44 is a great gun and I obviously love them, for raw accuracy, few of what I have can compare in accuracy to my Python with decent 357 handloads.