I dont think its a case of a cut above at all, as ive already stated you can buy some affordable brands that are still well made, Diptyque is one good example of this.
As for Boots, well im just trying to think, take Paco Rabannes One Million for example. It gets alot of stick in the perfume world, but that is mainly to do with its commerciality and also the fact that young men have no clue when to wear this thing. They will wear it in summer when its blazing hot and it is very annoying, not a hot weather fragrance at all it will choke everyone around you out at 10,000 feet. Its actually one of the few mainstream fragrances that is actually not bad in terms of being quite well made and reasonable quality, but nobody really wants to smell like everyone else for starters, its nice to be an individual, also there arent many fragrances sold in boots that are of reasonable quality at all, most these designer brands the perfumes are just an afterthought to the rest of there line, they dont specialise in making perfume and they have very tight budgets they work on, so the end product is usually very inferior.
The funny thing about it though is you dont realise or no this until you actually start getting your nose on some of the expensive niche stuff, its then that you can tell the difference blatantly.