Ballet Shoes Sound Like a Design Problem to Me

Your classic pair [of traditional ballet pointe shoes] can last anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of days…The American Ballet Theatre in New York City sets aside $350,000 for pointe shoes per season, about $7,500 per ballerina…Most of the shoes purchased for Ballet Tucson come from Freed of London, an established British pointe shoe maker since 1929.
— excerpted from the article En Pointe Takes Toll on Shoes

I don’t mean to sound ridiculously naive here, but if good ballet shoes cost $50-100, and professional ballerinas completely destroy a pair in less than a week, and most of these shoes are being made by (ostensibly) a handful of companies who have been making the shoes since the early 20th century (ostensibly) in the same fashion, doesn’t it stand to reason that someone needs to design a better ballet shoe?