I don't know if it all comes down to "a price" for everyone. Famous people get pussy thrown at them in droves. My brother once saw one of the finalist, not even the winner, from the original season of the Bachelorette in a bar and he said women were lining up to fuck the dude. He wasn't going to provide endless riches or cure anyones cancer. I never personally got the allure of people with "power." Fame seems easy, you've done something that has garnered attention and admiration from a large amount of people. Some powerful people are famous but what's the allure of going after a state representative of South Carolina? I guess it is a provider thing? Someone that is powerful in a large company or high up in politics might be a good provider? Is there something about being in control of large amounts of people that is sexy to girls? Im a dude if it came down to it, looks would still be the deciding factor here. I'd much rather fuck Sarah Palin than Ruth Bader Ginsburg and RBG has put out some HOT material on pornography....
"Price" doesn't necessarily mean money, or even material gain. It can be as simple and intangible as a self esteem boost. Some things you can't buy; for example, "I'm hot enough to get fucked by someone on TV", or "I'm the kind of person that someone from TV wants to fuck".
Fuckin' sold. And that height/intelligence article is itself a purposely misleading piece based on an incorrect interpretation of the data. If you've taken a Quantitative Methods course, you'll realize that this: means that while height is some of the reason some people get paid more, intelligence is also some of the reason (cue duhs). While "height seems to be correlated to some degree with intelligence" is an interesting fact, it's got no explanatory power. Also, about that facial beauty study: I doubt the results, not because I don't think there's a scientific component to beauty, but because I think the methodology is flawed. Seriously, if you've spent time on the internet you've probably tried out a similar survey yourself. Look at this picture long enough, and you're driven to pick the one that least looks like an alien.