Is the saving/reading algorithem for font files so super 1337
Just saving the vector paths for each glyph is actually pretty straight forward. But when you start to add the other parts of what makes up a good font, hinting, kerning etc. it gets really complicated, really fast. Typography is an art form i itself. It has been developed and refined for hundreds of years (Yes, since Gutenberg and onwards) and the realization of this long typography legacy on the computer is far from as simple as defining the vector paths for each character. There is a lot more to a font than that.
But I agree font tools are expensive. I think this is a combination of the complex features needed and a small market.
However, I would also really welcome an open source initiative to address font creation.