It's worked out very well so far for him but they had a well-defined scenario planned for it.

He and his brother split the $1000 selling price so his share was $500.  They use it primarily as a paddle boat and deflate the thwarts to use as an oar rig.  The yearly goal, as I understand it, was that each family would have one week-long oar trip on something like Deso/Gray plus several day trips down the Salt.  This enables them to invite friends and have something to swap in/out with some in the party using IK's.

Although the hope is it last many years, the goal is to get 3-4 years usage out of it.  They have 2 seasons so far and have no regrets.  Both families normally use IK's but wanted the option of a raft.  Since each family would only have one or two weeks a year when the raft was in use, they did not want to invest a lot of money on one.