Money, really its not hard to see why.

It was actually why I didn't buy a Vita at first. Back then I had not yet bought a next gen handheld and wasn't actually sure between the 3DS and what I had been hearing about the Vita had sounded quite promising. Unfortunately, when I found out about the proprietary cards and the coming 3DS XL ended up putting me in the lain of first getting the 3DS.

I got one later from ebay but ended up selling it.

Memory cards was a big problem for the Vita, but it wasn't its biggest one. It would still sell bad even if they were much cheaper.

First Nintendo handheld that doesn't use a proprietary storage format.

Compared to a handheld whose predecessor had a huge rate of piracy.

an updated code base isn't gonna stop pirates, formatting storage mediums is a much better solution but even then there isn't any 100% solution.

Piracy is just not commonplace on the system especially with its demographic.

Meanwhile, the Vita is the PSP's successor, so while obviously the Mem Cards are a cash grab, piracy is a substantial concern.

Possibly arrogance.
Both the Internet and Media were expecting the Vita to be huge, the Nintendo handheld killer. Sony probably just bought into the hype, figuring it was going to sell so well they could charge whatever for memory cards and people would have to buy them.

DRM is what they were thinking.

One of the main reasons I said it would flop.

Once again Sony wanted to establish a proprietary format to make more money with a not-better technical solution. Even more they had many problems with their firmware in the past which led to piracy but given how many systems the DS moved which was so easy to "break" one might think Sony should Vita give a push via this way.
It would be nice to play emulators on the little handheld (well, you can also use the shield, of course, which has even more power than Vita but I think Vita has better ergonomy).

are you confused ?

your post confirms Vance's statement is absolutely spot on.

This is it. It's basicly what Sony has always done.

Probably cause the Memory Stick Micro failed and they still had the factory..

What? Because they had plastic peaces they didn't use for the m2? That's the funniest I heard about Sony's Vita cards, thanks for that! :D