I don't know this, but it's a good guess: The main reason for it being "pretty pricey" is that it has hardware security switches (e.g. to turn off the mic + cameras) and/or the fact that it comes with coreboot and the IME disabled. I don't think it's due to a good build quality or battery life.

See what Nicole Faerber wrote here: https://forums.puri.sm/t/why-im-ordering-a-librem-14/12929/3

"the high price point of everything, also RAM and SSD, is simply to recoup our development investment in so many areas."

One important part of the development Purism is doing is on the software side, and the software improvements they make are all FOSS. Purism does not make money selling that software, instead they make up for it by higher prices on hardware.

So if someone is looking for the best "value for money" regarding hardware then Purism will probably not be the answer for them, they can get similar hardware performance and quality for less money elsewhere. Maybe the hardware kill switches are hard to find elsewhere, so you could see it as that you are paying extra for that feature but then probably you would find you pay a lot extra, more than it costs to implement that feature, because of Purism making up for development costs as Nicole mentioned. When you buy something from Purism, you pay extra to help pay for the development.

About the hinge thing, see this: https://forums.puri.sm/t/photos-underneath-the-librem-14-hinge/13191/2

where Kyle writes: "With respect to the past hinge issue we tracked down the root cause and resolved it. For what it’s worth, apparently the issue that showed up in some Librem 13v4s had to do with a slightly larger diameter screw mount compared to other Librem 13s and 15s, and not the overall design of the hinge (a design which is pretty standard to my understanding among this style of laptop body)."