On the one hand, I also want to say: Look at het albinos. People are pretty much giving them away.. especially male hets.
On the other hand, most pastels these days look like crap, which I believe is causing poor prices. Pairing a male pastel with the cheapest normal brown females you can find will make poor looking pastels. A good looking pastel female hatchling still can command $200. While some may snub their nose at $200, that's far from "giving an animal away for free".
In addition, if you look at hatchling female pastel prices from 08, and compare them to a 1000-1500g female pastel today (likely an 08), you'll see that as the animal grew, it gained value.
I'd say there still is perceived market value in pastels.