Blenders, Gah... No one that posted about a vitamix was doing so because they were caring for a person that could not chew... AND my free magic bullet does wonders in smashing up baby food, so I imagine it would be fine for that purpose.
No one needs a blender than can pulverize things that other blenders can't do. Want? yes. Need? No. The vast majority of people buying these will not keep making several smoothies a day x 20 years to recoup the cost of a blender that is approx 15X the price of others.. I have had 3 blenders in my life, and went through 5 years of 7-20 smoothies a week (family), one cheap one, was disposed due to a broken glass that I could have replaced, one was a free magic bullet that I use a lot, and the other was a gift to replace the broken one... and I am coming up to 28 years since I bought the first one, so one blender every 10 years...?
Yes, there have been times when I wanted to make more than a small batch of nut butter, or grind oatmeal for flour, or flax seed, or whatever, but I got over that fast. Food processors are much less money than a vitamix, BTW...
As to the question of should people smoke <anything>, well, it needs to be part of an overall budget? But if someone asked if they should buy $800 of pot, fancy coffee beans, or what have you, I would definitely be showing the math on how much that means to the retirement fund... The kind of person that will blow off $800 on one item is often a person that has a lot of other expenses.