One reason to get this fixed would be if the swirl flaps are stuck in a position that compromises performance or fuel economy. I recall being told (by my Volvo indie I think) that if they're in the open position, that means the car drives normally most of the time, but performance/economy wouldn't be as good at low speed, e.g. in traffic.
So if you can find out whether they're stuck in the open position, that might help you decide to part with the money. If you can move the control arm back and forth and it doesn't feel like there's much play, you could at least leave the throttle in the open position.
If you check the photos in my article (and one of the videos I link to), you should be able to figure out what position the control arm should be in to have the flaps fully open. This is all assuming, of course, that the control arm is still secure attached to the swirl throttle shaft (on mine it had a fair bit of play so the flaps would never have been fully open of fully closed, because the motor would have set it's open and closed positions based on the stop points on the control arm.
Hope this makes sense. To clarify, when I say 'throttle' I mean the following part:
And when I say 'control arm' I mean the part attached to the LHS of the throttle's main shaft that's being held in the chap's fingers in the photo. I'm not talking about the link arm that goes between motor and control arm (as that's not relevant here).