I've been using a Sansamp RBI for about 3 years now and paid about $250-275, I didn't realize they had gone up so much. Never had the pedal version so I can't comment on the mids issue, but the RBI has a mid control and I've never had a mids issue or felt that I had to over compensate in that area. I really liked what the RBI did to my B100r when I had it, it increased the volume and gave some great tonal variations. Now I'm using the RBI as a preamp in front of my LittleMark 2 and I really like the way a 60/40 percent blend of LM2/RBI sounds. I feel that the RBI gives you that little bit of "tubeyness" that some of us miss when we switched to lighter solid state amps. With the two sound shaping filters on the LM2 and the drive/presence on the RBI there are a staggering amount of tone combinations you can dial in.
My favorite sound combination now is the LM2/RBI + 4004 w/hb1's + DR Hi Beams, almost ESL-like tone.
