Please help me understand

There's something about my rainbow quest that is confusing me, so I'm turning to the blogosphere for help.

My strategy for completing the 2013 Topps rainbow is pretty simple.  Pursue the "rarest" cards first through ebay etc. and the more common parallels through busting packs and making trades.  For those keeping score that means I'm most actively hunting down the pink cards (something I never thought I would ever type) #ed/50, followed by the black #ed/62 etc.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the mysterious purple cards.  It seems as though no one is really doing anything with those, but I digress.

I don't plan on buying many new cards until Series 2 comes out, so I have some spare dollars to spend on ebay.  My mobile app dutifully informs me every time something of interest is posted.  I've mainly watched the activity from the outside just to get a feel for the market.  Based on auction history I came up with reasonable expectations for how much I'm willing to spend on these cards.  I don't want to spend more than 10 bucks on a single card.  So far I've won two pink and two black cards without going over the limit.  Actually I've stayed well below.  Up until now I've felt pretty good about my little strategy.  Then this happened, which probably led to this:

#222 85/99

Here's my problem.  I won the black version of this card for around $7.  The most recent pink auction?  Went for $20.49.  So why did this card that is supposedly less rare (and much uglier) than the other two, sell for 36 bucks?

But wait a minute there was also this, this and this:

#46 46/50

Now granted this card has a tiny imperfection, but come on it still went for $15.50.  The camo went for $25, and black for $31??  The prices are all screwed up!!  This mystifies me.

It also makes me anxious.  I'm usually not down for the serial number thing and I try not to be affected by it.  However, the last thing I'm looking for right now is an empty space on a page.  There is no way that I can drop $40 on a single card.  That is unless I run into the perfect storm of drunkenness and aggression whilst one of these being auctioned.  Please pray that doesn't happen.

So what's the deal here?  Is this just artificial price inflation?  Are other collectors jumping the gun to prevent that dreaded empty space?  Should I give up the quest while I'm ahead??  (That's not going to happen.)

In other news, I recently received an envelope from Nick at Dime Boxes:

#105 Target red
Still missing the base...

Chasing History CH-36

The one without all the foil and refractoriness.

Thanks for the trade Nick!  I added more stuff to my want list, check it out!!