That's probably right. If you know you need a network of small tube sites to accumulate some seo traffic you can use anything free, including wordpress. But you can also get KVS as a content base for all these tubes, accumulate all your content there and just export manually or via feeds to all your network. You will get many KVS benefits and at the same time you will have your network up at a small cost. In future you can also use this KVS installation for your advanced tube and you can also promote it from within your network.
This is the way how we see some KVS clients doing. Other clients create 1-2 cool tubes on KVS and grow them. It is much easier to manage several big tube sites rather than dozens of smaller ones. Don't you think that you need to create tube network just because scripts that you are using do not allow your projects to grow and you have to run more and more?
From the other point KVS is not really as expensive as you think (BTW: you can also install it by yourself, this process is easy and we are always glad to help with installation issues if any). With the current GFY promo you can get ultimate license for
$377, you can buy x20 licenses package for $2519 (
$126 for 1 license) which is a good price for all the features you get. Finally for basic tubes if you don't need ultimate features you can buy basic for
$83. Then if needed it can be upgraded to ultimate, what you can't get with other scripts.