I find it rather interesting that just a short time ago there was a rather heated debate about weather or not Physical Adepts were under-powered compared to Cybered up Sams, who have access to such cheap augmentation; and now here we are lamenting the too high cost of said ware.
So which is it? Are PhysAds under-powered because they don't have access(without losing Essence) to cheap ware, or is ware to expensive now?
I like the current costs, and I like to play sammies. My current character, converting from 4th to 5th, only has about 3 Essence points of augmentation and he does just fine. But then, most of my focus is on Attributes and Skills, not relying on augmentation. Bone Lacing, Suprathyroid, Muscle Aug and Toner, Reflex Enhancers. That's it. He shines because of his skills and a few strategically built dice pools(18 dice pool with his favorite weapon, a heavily modified Ruger Superwarhawk and 16 with Unarmed that does just as much damage as the Ruger), and his attitude, which comes from play. Sure, he might not stand up in a head to head confrontation with the pregen orc sammie in the book, but so what? He's fun to play, and does not outshine the phys ad we have on the team either.
Every time I see arguments like this, phys ads are too week or augmentations are too costly, it always looks like someone is lamenting their favorite character won't be the most powerful in the game anymore. You should never want to be the most powerful. That's only fun for about one session. The fun comes from overcoming obstacles, from beating a challenge, and the greater the challenge the greater the fun. Leave things be, just play it as it stands, and focus on having fun not stacking the best stats.