Trust me when I say that you guys have got it pretty good. Here in Australia we're still reaping the benefits (sic.) of low population hence low volume and a massive geographical shipping nightmare to deal with (+/-1,000kms between most capital cities).
Add that to the fact that most of the less mass-market brands such as, well just about all the big HiFi brands with the exception of perhaps Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, LG; are handled by distributors or agents. Some distributors are smart enough to know that HiFi people often spend a lot of time either reading overseas publications such as WHF or reading about stuff on the internet; and keep their prices reasonably close to o/s pricing. Others are somewhat out of touch leading to horrendous price inconsistency.
This situation has driven me (and a lot of others) well away from Denon for one example, who's distributors are renowned over here for their shameless price gouging. To give you a real-world example, in the UK you can buy a Denon AVC-A1HD for £3800 (I'm going on the last high-end guide here) and the Yamaha Z11 or Pioneer LX90 for £5000 - right?
OK, so in Australia - the 'lucky' country, we get to pay (at retail anyway) the same price of A$12,999 across the board for all three amps - what this makes for with current exchange rates is that the Pioneer and Yamaha are pretty much on par with UK prices whereas the Denon carries a price premium of approx. 30%. Don't even ask what the Denon pre/power goes for - its laughable and I'm told that as of January 1, all Denon prices were going up by another 25%!
For another example, after reading reviews etc a year or so back I set my heart on the Cyrus CD6 but ended up with a Cambridge Audio Azur 740C as the CD6 carried a price premium of well over double the UK price - at the time A$3,500 (or £1722 to you). I believe this distributor has recently seen sense and Cyrus gear can now be had for a more palatable price.
Many people I know head to Singapore for their gear as generally the kit and the flight cost is less than buying the equipment here - though then we have the issue of warranty etc.
Another factor is that we only pay 10% GST (read VAT) here too so there's another 7.5% we should theoretically be paying less of.
There's a lot to be said for 61 million people living on a small island vs. 21 million living in a country the size of the US. At least you've got a reasonable degree of competition going for you.