> $5k is surely high, but from a researcher/professor point of view I don't think it's prohibitive
This is not true, $5k is a lot of money. It is certainly more than what traveling to a conference cost! I'm in France, and even going to California for a week, including plane tickets, accommodation, food, and conference registration is less than $5k. The thing is we are sometimes told to target journals rather than conferences because "there is no more budget this year" for instance. If we had to pay $5k to publish in journals we would just be told not to publish in these journals.
This is not true, $5k is a lot of money. It is certainly more than what traveling to a conference cost! I'm in France, and even going to California for a week, including plane tickets, accommodation, food, and conference registration is less than $5k. The thing is we are sometimes told to target journals rather than conferences because "there is no more budget this year" for instance. If we had to pay $5k to publish in journals we would just be told not to publish in these journals.