As an owner of a Jamis Xenith, I feel compelled to agree that they have some good values out there.
It totally depends what you want out of a bike. Is it for racing of the occasional weekend ride? Do you care about weight more than cost, etc? Honestly the ones you mentioned are all made in huge factories in Taiwan, and their lower end road bikes are largely of similar quality.
Seeing as a large percentage of bikes are made in huge factories in Taiwan, this shouldn't be a surprise.
Your best bet would be to look for last year's model from an LBS that's marked down. You can find some great deals that way.
A) not the point of the thread
B) false logic - if a bike is a better value to begin with, and you find a previous year model that's marked down, it's an even greaterer deal.