I only buy games in sales (GOG and Steam), don't care what the retail price is when first released.

Yeah, I don't really buy any games full-priced either these days, with the exception being Nintendo games, as they never drop their prices.

Only willing to pay $80 anything more nope.

Come to Canada then

If anyone believes that charging more for the games would make DLCs and microtransactions disappear, they're in for a let down. Those practices won't go anywhere, sadly.

Plan out your game better, know what you want to make before you start making it.

New engines and the use of machine learning should help to drastically reduce the cost to make games.
That and the fact that the gaming market is ever growing means this should be a non-issue.

Game developers need to focus on making games that inspire interest and awe to continue to grow the market, and that is pretty much all.

Unfortunately though, it seems like any advancements made in that department is offset by them trying to move the development costs to another aspect of the game, keeping the high, bloated price of making a game. Especially since much of the game's budget is spent on marketing.

While it is a problem, mainstream consumers don't know nor do they care, so piblishers would be hard-pressed to not be faced with criticism.

Fair enough.
If only all the time and money spent marketing was used on making the games more than mediocre.

Well, there are games out there that are more than mediocre.