Some things you just can't replicate with ease at home.
When I see someone claim that he can cook better food at home, I assume either that he eats exclusively at Chili's or that he lives in a flyover area where "fine dining" means steakhouse.
Well there's food, and there's FOOD. I guess you could call me a "foodie" of some sort. I love food, watching about it on TV, reading about it, etc. I learned to cook in my 30's on my own, took some classes, learned to master a lot of basic dishes and a few fancy dishes.
Of course with small children and a full time job, my cooking these days is mostly uninspired and more the "Chili's" set. But in years past, I got pretty good at experimenting.
The thing with cooking something yourself is that you get to make it EXACTLY how you like it. It may take 2, or 3, or 4 tries to get the sauce right, or the spice level right, or to stop overcooking the damn salmon, but after that - you've got it.
That doesn't mean you should never eat out. There are some nice restaurants in my town with local ingredients that make really really awesome food that I would never attempt on my own (mostly because I'm too busy and too frugal to risk wasting that much money on 3 or 4 or 5 tries of it). One of them costs us - well, it depends. We got out of there for $100 one night by not drinking and not having dessert, but it was closer to $250 the first time. Delicious, but it's a kind of place we've been twice, and they've been in business 10 years.
How often do you need to blow $100+ for dinner for two people?
The challenge for me (of course) is ethnic food. I love Indian, Thai, etc. etc., and the restaurants are often better. But there are a few recipes that I've tried and love (usually from a friend who is Indian, for example).
