I think the $5 ones I’m using are unusually good for that price level, but in part, the industry is basically a scam. I actually had a semi expensive pair (Shure SE210) for a while. Don’t know where they are now. Were they better than the $5 ones? Hard to say, maybe a little. The even higher end ones had multiway drivers and maybe that makes more difference. Do the wireless buds have that? Also some fancy buds are custom molded to your ear canals, which might help. I’ve never tried those.

I haven’t had issues with the buds getting yanked by the cord. I do sometimes have to untangle the cord before using the buds. And I’ve lost a bunch, which makes cheap ones attractive.

I also found that as I became a more experienced music listener, I cared about audio quality less than before. Audio imperfections stopped mattering as much. I don’t know if that is common.