Pokeydokey, you also need to consider the likely amount of maintenance. Where I live, you can go and train in, or hire, a C152 with 22,000 hrs on the clock (yes, you read that right) or walk across the road and fly a fairly new batch of LSAs. It's hard to generalize across operators and aircraft so I'll give you a number I know: a good annual on my P2002JF, which is a GA-registered certified aircraft with 650 hrs TT, typically runs to $2k. My LAME has no hesitation in saying that a 22,000 hr C152 does not get out of his shop for anything like that, even before the spectre of SIDS arises.
My aircraft could equally well be RA Aus registered, but being a certified version the savings are not as great as most people think. In any case, there is no short-cut to airworthiness and I'm quite happy to pay a good LAME to do what needs to be done. (And, in all aircraft - big and little - I expect surprises occasionally.) Evidently at least one local flying school and various private operators think the same way: their RA Aus LSAs are maintained by the same LAME.
Aircraft, including LSAs, are not as cheap as we'd like and operators will always have more capital investment costs to recover than we'd like. But to re-state the point I made a few posts ago, the 30% or so you can save by hiring a well-maintained LSA/VLA is worth it to many people. As others have said, it's all about getting people in the air and keeping them flying.
I say this with the experience of having owned a number of GA aircraft, and with a background of being a fan of the C15x etc trainers. And I don't have any problem with spot checks on all maintenance - in any registration category - because, as VH-XXX implies, we've all seen some shockers in the GA world, too.