My opinion might suck but here's how I see it.

Colorado residents should have to kick in a bit more because we get over pretty good. The animals might be state owned but the public land is not. But it would not be fair to live in a area and never get to hunt out your back door so to speak. OTC might suck at times but at least you get to go hunting.

Non residents suffer in the draw and pay a good price to play the game. It should have always stayed a 50/50 draw on tags that require points to draw. That would have been fair. But then again there's states where we would have to wait in line to draw a tag in their state.

Money. It's all about money.
A ski lift ticket for just one day on the low side is $70
A movie night with the family $100
A nice dinner with your special doe $50 on the cheap side
The amount of ammo you spent on the range for your super mag $100 if you got trigger happy.

In Colorado we don't even pay 10% of what the non residents are paying for tags. Not really fair on that point either.

Suck it up and be part of the stewardship program. If elk tags were $1000.00 for residents I guess I'd save up and still go elk hunting every year. Might cut down on Mcdonalds big macs but elk is healthier. We blow that much money every year on junk.