EjustE- I forgot to mention this earlier. I don't look at your critique regarding price as naysaying. It is feedback. It is valuable. My reply is to provide some perspective on why and how we do the things we do. Chris wants to be the good guy and keep prices fair. Not low or cheap but fair. I usually remind him of the other costs associated with getting this stuff made though, so it's always a long discussion of what we will sell it for at a fair price.
Making things from scratch (re-producing a 50 year old crank that has never been seen by 5 manufacturers and forging houses is making from scratch) is a different business than it was long ago with higher costs due to inflation, and more competition due to the international nature of the selling place. eBay, craigslist and an effective webstore wasn't around barely 10 years ago. So much has changed. When making anything, manufacturers need to take all this into account or at least choose to ignore it. Sometimes it's successful, sometimes its not. I can't tell you how many new products I see from major manufacturers that never make it beyond their sales office because of poor costing and pricing assumptions, or a solution in search of a problem. Hopefully our new cranks avoid those pitfalls.