People are certainly free to spend their money on what they want, and vanity is not necessarily a bad thing as it also has an element of pride and doing a good job, but I don't believe that a custom bike necessarily fits better than an off the shelf bike. When it comes to quality obviously a Walmart bike will not compare to a custom, but there are numerous manufacturers that sell high quality bikes at a fraction of the cost of a custom. Basically, I don't believe a custom bike is worth the extra cost over a good quality off the shelf bike if all you are interested in is performance. But riding a shinny custom bike is fun and if people what to do that that's just fine.
Frankly, discussion of whether there's a need for a custom built touring bike is off topic for this thread. Why don't you start a new thread to discuss this hypothesis, where it will get the attention it deserves?
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Ron - Tucson, AZ