Worth the price is relative. As far as animal print rollaboards go, this is certainly the best quality you can get. In fact, it is the only animal print case I know of from a high grade company. That does not make it any prettier but taste is relative, too.
What is not relative is weight to size ratio. This one is BAD. It is a 20 inch bag but weighs as much as a full-fledged 22" bag.
The answer is easy in the sense that it is the only really high-end animal print roller out there, afaik.
Other brands that have animal print rollers are IT, Liz Claiborne, Ricardo and Heys. None of them is as good as Tumi but none of them is as ugly, either. Sorry, it had to be said.
So if it MUST be an animal print roller, get a cheap one that's light weight so you can handle it yourself. It also has the nice side effect that if you see you get negative feedback from the animal roller case, you can just shelve it without having lost $500.
The additional ruggedness and warranty the Tumi might have are not worth four times the price in a piece of luggage that is for carry-on. It would be the perfect check-in bag though because nobody would steal it.
Till