That's definitely true, the logistics of obtaining higher quality components of craftsmanship too were also far less scaled. You look at something like imperial porphyry, a type of purple granite which is hard to work and in antiquity could only be sourced from one mine in Egypt, and how it came to be a symbol of imperial power. It's actually a very honest symbol because in order to get it at those times you would have HAD to have command over a very large and coordinated supply chain and skilled artisans. Same as how in evolutionary theory deer antlers are considered an example of "honest" signalling of superior fitness: a buck is only able to display what surplus minerals he is physically able to gather.
It definitely says something interesting about our economy that current "signals" are far more abstract, and our stuff is both more plentiful and more ephemeral.