I don't find $42 for a box of three types of low humidity, working-sized, no bark, heartwood to be expensive. Especially when I look at the bags of chips, and chunks available, what they cost, and having to buy multiple bags to get a mix of wood types. The last box of wood lasted almost five years. To me, it's nice to have confidence in the wood, especially given what we are paying for the meat these days, the time and effort required to smoke, etc. But to each his own.
I don't care for the new cut that Smokinlicious is doing. Have exchanged some emails with them, and this appears to be the new norm vs the stuff that was split in the long direction, plus didn't look machine processed. The reply indicated this was safer to produce, as well as reduced waste given that wood price has increased 600% apparently. I'll probably still split it into smaller pieces, and suspect it will burn just as good. Also, when I looked at alternatives, it appears that saw-cut squares or rectangles are more the norm (even Smokin-It), or wood chunks that may or may not be split, typically have bark, and are dried to some questionable degree. Either way, paying too much for wood isn't going to break the bank. IMHO