I suspect one reason its hard to justify subsidising is that it's not a locked down device like a traditional console is. In this climate sadly if it was a "good deal" you'd get people hoarding them for anything but gaming.
The Lenovo Legion Go 2 with the Ryzen Z2 Extreme is £1300 here ($1720) for some context on how other SteamOS like devices are now priced. I got the older Z1 Extreme model for £300 with a dock for some context on how insane the prices have got...