My mistake. The general point still stands though, you ignore time and the very real possibility of high initial prices for Bottle Imp because nobody wants to end up with those -13VPs. The strength of Bottle Imp changes over time, from being very valuable early in the game towards being progressively worse and then sharply becoming a very bad card at the end of the game. This means that strength evaluation changes over the course of the game and thus will its ownership.
You are simply wrong about this being good/bad in a particular Kingdom. It is like pretending that Hireling is always good/bad in Kingdom ABC while ignoring time, while ignoring that it is much stronger early on.
Note that my hypothetical scenario where one player has the option to take the bottle imp is true at any point in time.
It is true that in many games I would like to have the bottle imp at the beginning in order to build, and then I would probably like to get rid of it towards the end of the game. The point that many people seem to be ignoring is that if it is good for me to have my opponent take the bottle imp away from me, then it is bad for my opponent to take it away.
Or like Jimmmmmmm said, giving your opponent a choice is always worse than not giving them a choice.
If my opponent can choose to take the imp away for $1, $2, or $3, or not take the imp, that is better for them than being able to take the imp away for either $1 or $2 (or not taking it), which is better than only being able to take the imp away for $1 (or not), which is better for them than not being able to take the imp.