It's nice not to need a master wheel builder just to keep from popping spokes and all for under $100.
This is what my cheap wheel (cheap in price, not quality) was able to withstand (copied below), because of the beefy 12-gauge spokes. I wonder how a $300 custom wheel would have performed under the same conditions.
This is my experience, copied from another thread:
http://www.bikeforums.net/clydesdale...34-wheels.html
I ride around with panniers on my rear rack, the current ones are very old and had developed a hole in the bottom, which I didn't noticed. As I was starting off from a red light, I got to about 15 mph when all of a sudden my rear wheel came to a sudden stop; I thought I had a catastrophic blowout, but I was extremely surprised to find one of my wrenches sucked into the spokes of my rear wheel.
I was expecting to see at least three spokes broken, but not a single spoke broke, only one spoke was severely bent and heavily marred by the metal-to-metal contact. I was able to make a quick on-road repair and ride the bike home. I ordered a new spoke (and a couple spares) and I replace one spoke. I did a 30-mile test ride yesterday and all is fine.