If Leaf is involved now, it will probably be worse than ever. They are the ones who let you mail in an autograph and they turn it into a "card" for you (an autograph with a paper frame like we discussed in the forums last week), slab it, number it 1/1, and add it to a checklist as though it were a set. They will even combine two autographs into one "card" for you, so you could have a dual auto "card" of Abraham Lincoln and Pee-Wee Herman if you happened to own an authenticated autograph of both. This is Leaf, the savior of ITG.
I'm going to reevaluate how I collect after the new year. It's just getting way too expensive for the new stuff. Sometimes I just want to buy a pack, not a whole box or even blaster.