> 10x price difference ... Why would it be any different for thumb drives?

I'm more concerned with the reliability (in my experience). The middle-priced ones are not necessarily better than the cheapest ones.

> Higher speeds are more difficult to achieve

I'm not asking for 1000 MB/s write speed. Why do I still sometimes get 10MB/s in 2023? Is it much to expect around 100 MB/s write (HDD-level speeds) in most "average" thumb-drive?