It is pretty maddening - I am trying to get the best value upgrade for my wife's aging 128gb A51 and the A55 256gb is literally the perfect fit. She wants the storage, better camera and chip (over the A35) and if we go backward to an S-series like SAMMY is steering us all, (refurb full version or FE models) in 256gb, we're both forced to accept a smaller battery (4k ma/h vs 5 on A-series) and pay an extra $150-200 depending on the friggin color...
The insult - I can order one being sold on US soil, that came form S.America, but the warranty won't be any good here, and there may be some band that gets bonked on US towers.
Straight up greed is what it looks and feels like IMO. The flash media prices on integrated boards like a phone are absolutely outrageous compared to stand alone SSD storage / flash options for PCs. Rant over :-/