I wonder if what may colour some people's views is the nature of the more modern Japanese import industry, i.e. the comparative economy of so many JDM performance cars (although many of the same caveats apply, given the volume of tat coming in sourced through auctions). Maybe that fuels the "I'm not paying that much for an import/project car" attitude. The fact that the Japanese classic market is in a different ballpark financially is lost on them and is not directly comparable to how much Japanese classics are worth in the UK.