I also realized I like smooth ball points, used to use the finer Pilot gelpoints in school. The Caran D'ache ballpoint is quite nice for a more luxury product
Yes, like the GP says, it's a luxury pen. They didn't buy it for purely utilitarian reasons. They might like that it has an all-metal construction or that it weighs 88g. They might prefer the ink formulation used for the cartridges. They might like how the pen works in their preferred notebook. For many people, tactility (and other sensations too) is just as, if not, more important than, utility.