Is that why Coca Cola or Nike are so large? Because practically no one buys the old brands?

1 - a person in a store, ready to buy a scale, does not know anything about the development process. And does not care.

2 - the development costs are high when developing and selling 1000 special scales to measure weight of vehicles on-the-fly before they cross a bridge, and potentially reroute the vehicles if too heavy. The development costs for a kitchen scale sold in 100k/year is not so high. So the development cost will not really make much difference for retail price.

3 - if one scale has brand "Great China Wall Scales" and one has brand 3"Bosch", a lot of people will consider the Bosch even if it is more expensive.

4 - whatever the development or production costs are, the distribution chain will eat up most of the price differences. Why sell a scale for $10 if most other scales costs $100 and the store know that the more expensive scales do sell well?

The only real difference with good reference designs available on the net is that the world will overflow with more variants, potentially produced in limited quantities. But the tools to make the plastic casing is very expensive, so these variants will probably not be so cheap. More like a lot of "designer editions" but with same contents inside.