re: The economic viability of slavery and it's eventual abolition

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1850 was the height of the cotton boom. the value/ price of slaves was directly tied to the price of cotton.
$2000 was about right, that's about $40,000 in today's dollars.
This had nothing to do with the demise of slavery, though. even if the war had never happened, the cost of slavery would have exceeded its profit some time in the 1880's. keep in mind the industrial revolution was rapidly changing farming as well as industry.
you are also wrong about slavery not being the reason the war was fought. if I am wrong, how can you explain why the csa's constitution was pretty much word for word as the usa's constitution (except for a provision that guaranteed slavery) after the csa seceded.

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Slavery was definitely a key lightning rod issue that many felt emotional about in the south, but obviously it didn't affect the lives of the majority of southerners. Aside from the super rich 6%, there was a long gap before you hit the vast majority of poor farmers/sharecroppers. The south didn't sustain too much of a middle class.

What did affect a lot of the southern farmers were tariffs put in place by a congress dominated by the populated north on agricultural goods. A lot of taxes began to be placed on cotton, sugar, tobacco, and other cash crops grown predominantly in the southern states. The US at the time was VERY divided economically, basically two different countries by 1850.

People don't realize that the southern secessionist movement wasn't even the first in the nation. The New England states nearly seceded over Jefferson (a southern president) self imposing an embargo that killed the north eastern mfg. goods and shipping trade. It's all economics.