I consider late-game after 10k which is when patron really starts to matter. The issue with your logic is that you can basically apply that to everything in trove. Why do HM/UM it's the same bosses I can do them in lower tiers. The whole reason why it's important is to increase your PR. Without Patron that hurts your progress quite a bit. "It's just numbers" I agree but regardless increasing said numbers is progress. Plus it's all the other bonuses like CC and daily bonuses. At some point you're really far behind everyone else if you don't have it.

The high prices are not because of the benefits. They were much lower (Like 150k) with the same benefits. The issue is is that top players to Buy Trove Flux can now easily abuse the flux economy and it's increased the prices of everything. The issue? We're all paying for it.
No... they weren't. How do you find yourself credible? You need credible sources because I can't trust your memory.

Approximately January this year (8-10 months ago) they were about 200k on average and sometimes you can score a deal of 170k-180k. I can think of at least 3 things that this doesn't account for:

1) Inflation. There has been a steady inflation for the currency of flux in trove. Especially now with the rise of multiple accounts. Things like lesser dragon caches and titan's treasure which bring in massive amounts of flux but so far not many flux sinks. Previously not many people were able to do hard shadow towers, now anyone can be carried by a single person in like 5 minutes through all of hard. I can almost solo ultra spike and wp, tons of titan's treasures coming into the game. I can list a number of other reasons why the amount of flux entering the game has drastically increased but not many things have taken out flux. Many similar items have double in price since patron passes were 200k.

2) Benefit. "With same benefits". Where did you pull that out of? When patron passes were 200k, they gave way less benefits. They didn't double the daily bonus, they didn't double magic find, and even a few more bonuses weren't there. All of the benefits generally help either save flux or earn flux faster. Also, the triple cubits is more than it used to be. Also the double rares from gem boxes. "With same benefits"... smoking kool aid is what you are doing

3) Continuing on with benefits; the amount of flux you make farming drastically increases with magic find. The fact patron passes double magic find makes up for how much cheapest trove flux you can make. I have gotten maybe 10-12 stellar drops and I don't play as often as I used to. I've sold some of them 130k-150k each. I get tons of radiants and pentas. It's just ridiculous how much magic find helps. It's ridiculously easy to afford patron pass and I'm making at least another million or so profit and I don't even play that much anymore

It's not my fault you think the player market just by magic increases over time. Maybe it's possible someone is flipping them and increasing their price... but if price for patron pass gets too high, people will spend money to sell for flux and it will decrease so it's hard for a few individuals to continue driving up demand unless there is a natural demand already in place.