Yeah my budget is about $1000 for the project, so $900 sounds about right...

Same price as I'd pay for a Sojourn on eBay, so there we have it! I'm going to start saving my pennies and then decide whether I want to custom-build something, or go with the pre-built stuff. I'm really heavily leaning towards building my own, as the knowledge I would gain by doing so would prove very valuable further on down the road.

And thanks for the warning about discount parts... I was thinking I'd need to do that to get the thing under $1k. But if buying decent parts will only cost me in the neighborhood of $900, then I'll consider this an option in the future.

Right now, I think I'm gonna have to keep hitting Craigslist looking for free or dirt cheap broken dept store bikes, fixing them up into decent commuters, and throwin' em back up on the old CL to make a (VERY) slow buck!