It's not some inherent price. It's just an arbitrarily imposed one.
Older products, even early digital ones from 70s and 80s, were more flexible for the end user (and often came with manuals and schematics) even in their consumer version.
An industrial product has different requirements compared with a consumer product. I am really curious how many hours of continous operation my camera can sustain.
It's not hidden, it's stripped according to actual product specs.
Industrial cameras (Basler/IDS) will give you access to most of the sensor capabilities if you want to prototype something.