RailEurope has introduced a new ticketing system for point-point fares - now having four categories to chose from:
In 2nd class - Economy and Freedom
In 1st class - Comfort and Comfort Flexi

whilst on the RE site i can't locate an explanation of what the difference is between categories i surmise that Freedom and Comfort Flexi may indicate tickets that can be changed but not sure.

Anyway RE seems to be responding to online fares from Europe - trying to match some of the specials like in Italy and France. Indeed there are on RE fares of $25 between Germany and Italy - and though these seats may be in very limited numbers so are online tickets at that prices it seems.
So the early bird as usual gets the worm. RE tickets can be booked up to 60 days in advance - on some services 90 days. And fairly new to RE is that on trains where reservations are compulsory they are included in the price - no more tacking $11/seat on. I've compared Italian fares thru RE with full fares in Italy on trenitalia and RE compares very very favorably. Check it out: www.raileurope.com

Quick look suggests that their UK prices are still a rip off - London to Windermere is $268 with Raileurope, $65 via nationalrail.co.uk if booked ahead.

Even a walk up fare (ie buy before just before you travel) costs as little as $130

Yes UK fares make no sense and i'd blame it on BritRail USA who Raileurope contracts these tickets from. As the UK is not a part of Euronet, the European Railways booking system RailEurope must go thru BritRail i guess. Anyway a look at German, Italian, etc. fares now shows a fairly close correlation for full fare tickets sold at stations and even in some cases the so-called discounted PREM fares.
But in any case you should compare the walk up fare in UK with RailEurope's UK prices because that's what they selling - a full fare unrestricted ticket - still i suspect much more here than there.

It seems the Raileurope ticketing now comes in four forms as in OP - i just read the details - economy is 2nd class 14 day advance in most cases it seems and non-refundable, non-changeable whilst Freedom is fully refundable and changeable in France up until three days before the train and then 50% exchangeable and reffundable up until 60 days after the train.
Same distinction for first-class tickets Comfort and Comfort Flexi.

raileuropes prices are way higher.

I just checked fares from Milan/Florence and Florence/Assisi and in both cases raileurope is totally out of line.

Raileurope last night raised their Italian fares 20%!