Pod Brewers Not Worth It Based on Price Alone

I've been thinking about a new coffee maker lately. I'm getting married soon and one of the guilty pleasures on the registry is a new coffee maker for me. For those of you who know me well, I'm a bit of a coffee drinker. With all that in mind my friend Brandon got a new Single Cup Brewer for his wedding and he raves about it. Now #1 I'm a slow - medium transitioner which means I'm do usually go to the newest and latest thing as soon as its out but rather towards the end of the movement or somewhere around there. I get skeptical. I like the way I've been doing things... #2 I do my research on significant purchases. Check the consumer reports. Scour the internet for reviews and blogs. Thats just how I do things. So with the new coffee pot hopefully on the way I decided to do my research;

#1. I'm not blown away by the variety of coffees available. I know that there are tons of different "pods" out there but I just don't see any brands that are grabbing my attention. This tells me that I shouldn't buy into the hype, or just simply buy the hype. To me that's part of the whole coffee experience is getting the kind of coffee you want, flavor, acidity, texture...

#2. The single cups brewers are much cleaner. No spilled coffee grounds. Pretty simple and very nice feature

and

#3. The prices. My math... and i'm only 90% sure I'm doing it right ;-) says that an average brand of the single cup brewer pods cost $8.35/pound. While an average brand (Maxwell House) of ground coffee beans for drip costs $4.69/pound. That's nearly half! I found that the price goes up depending on brand, obviously more for dunkin donuts or starbucks brands... but you get the gist. Also there's the coupon thing... I have never seen coupons for the pods, but that could be because I haven't been looking. But I've seen them for ground beans. Even the buy 1 get 1 free deals we have down here in Chattanooga. That brings the ground beans down to $2.35/pound sometimes.

So I just can't justify the pod style coffee brewing yet. I don't know if the price will come down on them over time or not. And who knows, maybe one day I'll be rich enough to buy myself a pod brewer to have the convenience but right now I can't.