Your better fabrics are like better sheets for your bed, they have a higher thread count. Some textile mills may print the same design in as many as three different thread counts!
Which is why you may find the same print at your quilt shop as at Wal-mart but for a much cheaper price and a much lesser quality of fabric.
I say buy what you like and can afford.
A friend of mine spent over $300.00 for Thimbleberries fabric to make her DDI a king sized quilt for Christmas a few years back, only to go for a weekend visit that summer to see the quilt in the dog kennel under the black lab that just had a pups!
A quilt is a labor of love no matter what the price we pay per yard, guess we have to be more choosey on our recipients! I do know that DDI will not get as much as a table-runner from now on.