Bud's is probably the best quick current price reference, if they have it in stock it'll usually be a "price to beat" but if its not in stock, the prices listed are usually lower than what you can expect to find. I paid $1250 + shipping and transfer fees late September 2016.
Less than 500, I wasn't counting. In all cases I put them clearly in the "infant mortality" failure regime, as it was only the second or third outing. Replacements have had no issues for 1000s of rounds.
My advice is shoot it as it comes, if something breaks fix it and move on (take advantage of any warranty), but I'd not spend money on replacing working parts with ones claimed to be "better", YMMV.