@krnel I think your post highlights our society's confusion as to what constitutes "happiness". Some people gain satisfaction at the completion of something unpleasant or difficult while other people merely want to avoid it "at all cost".
And I'd be willing to bet that the people surveyed who get "happier buying certain things" might not answer the same way a few weeks later after the luster has worn off the gold.
Yeah, absence of stress where we have free time has come to equate to happiness. It's a sad measure :\
At some point, "freedom" turned into "freedom from" and it's been downhill ever since.