Every game has a short shelf life compared to WoW, but Battlefield tends to have a longer lifespan than most FPS multiplayer games. True Battlefield games tend to have a 2-3 year time frame between major titles and the games themselves have communities for much longer than that. There were BF2 (2005) and BF2142 (2006) servers right up till the collapse of the Gamespy network and DICE refusing to workaround it circa 2011 (6 years). There are still a few BF:Bad Company 2 servers 6 years after release. BF3 (2011) still has an pretty active community (5 years) , and BF4 (2013) still has a huge following even after BF1 launch.
So I'm not real sure what you mean by "insanely short shelf life" regarding the Battlefield games. SW:Battlefront was not a Battlefield game, and Battlefield Hardline was a bit of a fluke and it wasn't even done by DICE. Battlefield isn't Counterstrike, but it isn't Call of Duty either.
As far as the price, I agree the $140 Ultimate Edition is ridiculous, even though it includes all the DLC ahead of time. It's a helluva gamble for someone to take. Even the announced $69.99 for the base title was obscene as its a full $10 more than other AAA releases.
Not quite... the standard edition is $59 buying from Orignin. But I got mine at cdkeys and only paid $43.