Bed and chair manufacturers must love this post. While I agree that it's pointless to skimp on things which would make you more productive, it's not necessarily true that the really expensive ones are better.
Yeah, you have to be smart about it really. To me, the quality different between the super cheap mattress and the $500 ones is big. For the $500 to $1000 jump, not so much. Same with chairs, the worst office chairs are terrible and going to leave you with pain. The mid range ones to the top just aren't as big a difference.