Sorry, but how do busters protect your wrist? I see how they will keep your fingers from being smashed between a tree and your grips but your wrist will still take the same blunt force hit to the bars. I mean your dads wrist didn't slam the tree did it? My wrist ride behind the grips, not out where the busters are covering? I am just confused. I mean if you look at it that way your knees can just as easily take a hit to a tree and causing even more damage than a wrist.
Back to the original question, sure $120 to cover a $200 pipe seems silly, but I bet you will hit that pipe on rocks and stumps pretty often, so after replacing that pipe 3 or 4 times, $120 bucks doesn't sound that bad to me.