Original covers online: $96. This set: $170. It is hard to justify spending that much for something we already have, or could get much cheaper with the normal covers.
Your numbers are North American. Where I live $170 represents about 6.5% of tuition for a year of university. So it's win-win, I get the alternate boxed set and my children avoid crippling debt.
LOLThe question is this: will my children and their children take as much pleasure in owning the limited edition alternate cover slipcase set as I will? I hope so because it's coming out of their college fund.
Original covers online: $96. This set: $170. It is hard to justify spending that much for something we already have, or could get much cheaper with the normal covers.
They redid the DM screen half a year ago. You'll find it now as the DM Screen Reincarnated, has new tables on the back.
Electronic versions - with search functionality - are available via D&D Beyond....and you know what format you still can't get the core books in? PDF! When is WotC going to realize that we're in the second decade of the 21st century? That all not having PDFs does is hurt their sales. You get people like me who have ignored 5e altogether because of the lack of legal PDFs. Then you get the people who might have purchased a legal PDF, but because it wasn't available, found it another way. There's no way that the unavailability of legal PDFs fights piracy; it just inconveniences and/or drives away their legitimate customers.
WOTC! WAKE UP!
I would almost certainly have purchased at least one or two of the core books in hardback by now if it were possible to get legal PDFs for them. (Better if you got a free PDF with the hardback, which most companies do nowadays.)