"$40 for a ROM chip is off the planet" ...
Checked the prices of Intel or even moreso Apple compatible stuff lately?
I was a beta tester for Commodore back in '93-94 or so. I have 2.04 ROMs in my A3000T and really would like to replace them with 3.x. I can run WB3.1 with one of those trick programs that loads Kickstart into RAM, and I have perfectly legal copies of 3.x Kickstarts on Commodore's own diskettes. However, by the time I spend the price of a suitable EPROM programmer and the Intel PC almost certainly required to operate it, it does become cost-effective to buy a finished ROM instead. So where is this "legitimate" source that sells them for $40?
