I like the fact that Familiar costs $3P. It's swingy, but there's also a lot of non-trivial decisions involved with the opening, since you can maximize the odds of getting Familiar, or you can open Potion and something that doesn't maximize the odds but is more useful later, or you can ignore Familiar entirely. I think that ThaddeusB is overestimating the number of games where opening Potion/X becomes a simple decision just because of lowering the price by $1, but the effect is still there, and more importantly, it's now obvious that you open Potion/whatever is the most useful later every time because you can very reliably hit $2P even if you open something like Lookout/Potion, and opening something like Storeroom/Potion becomes completely useless.
I think that Alchemist should possibly be $2P though, because getting it super early isn't as important as getting Familiar super early, it's just annoying when it doesn't happen.