Who pays $1000 for a battery?
I didn't say anything about not shopping around for the best deal on a battery, by all means get the best price you can.
What I did say, in summary, was that for our "weekend" toy type cars, I don't like using cheap batteries, as in "budget line" batteries. Our toys inevitably end up sitting around for 2-4 weeks without being started and seems the cheaper batteries don't deal with this situation as well, throw in a bit more finicky starting routine, large displacement, etc, and I find that the budget stuff has a harder time handling this scenario well. Then once they are discharged, they don't seem to recover as well. Then you have the nagging "Is it going to start without a jump box" hassle every time you want to start it.
Same thing with my lawn tractors over the years. Go buy a cheapie battery at Lowes and let it run down, it never seems to recover fully and starts weak. I had a WalMart tractor battery that never would recover from being discharged just once.
I finally gave up on the cheaper batteries for my "weekend" cars and lawn tractors and buy DieHard or Napa premium line, and have had much better luck. They deal with sitting for 2-3wks at a time, and seems that if I do neglect them, they stand up to being discharged much better.
Cheap batteries in an everyday, easy starting car is a different deal as they're not seeing the rougher conditions as a weekend car. I run a Sam's Club Duracell in my beater '96 Sierra with 355k on it because the truck is worth maybe $500, but I drive it daily and the battery works absolutely fine for that scenario.
I'm sure a dozen guys will reply that they start their 13:1 compression 482 in -20* weather after it's been sitting for three months with their 10yr old $65 battery, but in my experience it never seems to work out that way.