The prices for unusuals are ridiculous, though when you consider their uncrate rate and the cost of keys it sort of makes sense. Still not as bad as the Max's heads which are selling for around twice what the devils playground costs, without including any of the games, the big kill or the lugermorph. I imagine the earbuds are probably around the same, despite them being fairly easy to get for free during their available period.
Anyway on the point of TF2 updates- I haven't liked all of them (ie the new menu from the mac update) but there's not anything big I can't just avoid. The balance isn't too bad, and the beta shows Valve are trying to fix it (though they appear to have given up on some weapons, aren't bothering with some badly designed ones and I can't agree with all their balance ideas) though I'm still not happy about the set hats, and the Mann Co store means they can't really remove that requirement. The store itself is badly overpriced, there was a short lived sale where like 5 hats ended up at reasonable prices, where I got a couple of them and also some map tokens (not too expensive and supports map makers) and the jumper weapons, which are cheap and I don't think they dropped then.
The new weapons do give new experiences, loadouts and strategy, so keep me more interested, but they still aren't too easy to get. I'm missing 5 of the new weapons (not including the rift ones) and I've played the game a lot- I imagine it can be off putting for new players especially when some are upgrades, and others allow subclasses.