To each their own essentially when it comes to steps, as you mention if your in it to play for the $$$ then you would be better to just play regular stt's.....but to look at it comparitively you would essentially have to play higher after winning one, and then higher again if you win that one and basically ignorring a good BRM strategy.
The point of the steps is to move up the steps for the final destination or to hit a specific step and use that ticket in an mtt of that buyin for a chance at a large potential cash from the buyin of the initial step......its odd with the euro steps because they don't have the mtt's to correspond that I can tell as do the usd steps whereby you can use a step 2, 3, 4 etc for any corresponding 27$, 82$ or 215$ mtt so basically you could view it as taking a shot from a 7.5$ investment at making it to step 4 and playing in the sunday million.....in which case IMO its worth it.
I like the steps, havn't played them much lately but its a great way to gain entry to the 200$ mtt's for a relatively small investment.......you also could have the option of playing in a step and busting on purpose or at least attempting to before getting another ticket in such is the case with some like the 215$ step 4 up to step 5 i think if you bust on the ticket buble you get like 180$.
GL