The suppliers might reduce material cost in several ways:

1. Use 204 Stainless Steel (modified 201) instead of 304 Stainless Steel. This means a slight reduction in Chromium and Nickel, and a slight increase in copper to control work hardening. However, this suggest a slight increase in susceptibility to rust.

http://www.cartech.com/techarticles.aspx?id=1600

(I'm assuming 304 was in use in the first place...)

2. Use 7.0mm elbows instead of 6.2mm elbows - 7.0mm is easier, faster, and results in less wear and tear and mishaps.

3. Skip spoke head marking.

4. Larger production run.

5. Run threading dies for larger period and accept imperfect threads for machine built wheels.

Here's something interesting I just checked using a 300g scale with a resolution of .001g:

HTI 14g Stainless Steel Spoke (Hsing Ta) @293.5mm = 7.25g
CNspoke Mac 14g Stainless Steel Spoke @293.5mm = 7.47g
Phil Wood (Sapim) 14g Stainless Steel Spoke @293.5mm = 7.55g

Me suspects HTI's (Hsing Ta) are made using a much lower grade of stainless steel than CN and Phil Wood (Sapim).

HTI's are the lighter weight el-cheapo stainless steel spokes resold by WheelMaster with the lobed star spoke head marking.

=8-)