I was just talking about scene people in my home state, I know that in the '70s and '80s Marshalls were ubiquitous, especially in metal. In the early '90s that seemed to change. First Mesas, then Peaveys, then Randalls seemed to pop up around the place, and Marshall started to get a bad name because of some of the cheaper stuff they were producing. This might also be due to aggressive endorsement deals on the part of Marshall's competitors, and the fact that producers were looking for new sounds.
The point I was making is that while I seem to see a lot of Marshall 4x12 cabs around I don't see so many amps, except in the rock scene where some people have them, although quite a few of them seem to have gone for the Meso Rectos, which were a prestige/bling item for a time. Mesas are VERY expensive here, more expensive than Marshalls, so when someone wants to show off their money they buy a Triple Recto and an ESP (for some reason they are always $2k+, $4k+ for Hanneman ones). There might be some metal guy here playing a Kerry King Marshall now, but I don't go to as many metal gigs as I used to.
BTW, my screen name is based on the Sodom album, not the punk band, hence the picture of Frank 'Blackfire' Gosdzik as my current avatar and the album cover art when I first joined. 8)
On amp prices, we had a very strong dollar over the last year which fortuitously combined with the former Peavey distributor losing their deal, leading them to sell off all their stock at below cost prices.
I got my Peavey 6534+ for $1300 ... the new distributor is not giving good prices to dealers at all, and a lot of people are refusing to stock them, giving Allans Music (the retail arm of the new distributor AMI) a monopoly once all old stock is gone from other shops. Full retail price is $2600 and
Allans have them on sale for $2200 ... I think I did okay! I'm a very canny ebay buyer ;)