My question is when is Brompton going to make the Dahon killer? Every time I try a Brompton I'm reminded of why Dahon sells more bikes...because Dahons are just better in terms of striking all the right compromises to suit the needs of most riders.
If I can support a local company who makes a great product I will. That's not code for anything, but caring about folks in your area who make stuff for you.
You can't call up the Dahon factory and ask the guy who designed your bike a question or get them to customize your bike for you.
Sometimes it's better not to see how the sausage is made. I've called Bike Friday and it only irritated me to see how little they really understood my needs and how unwilling they were to provide the customizations I wanted. So why pay more for something that only irritates me? Reason says I'd be happier dealing with a company that shut down the phone lines and passed the savings onto the customer and I have been.
"Local" and "western" made is code for helping people which are "like me" at the expense of people which are "not like me." But not all of us think that's an ideal or even the moral thing to do.
Besides, when the folks of my area/tribe/nation don't care for me then why should I care for them? Bike Friday does not care for me, but maybe that's because I'm not enough "like them" (as opposed to Vik, for example, who gets treated better because he has some sort of camaraderie with them). merry2 had it right, "it's unprofessional"