I voted for the $150-300 Al of steel option before reading all the posts. It is a good point that there are many options for this proce range, but I voted for it because I wanted the "blank slate" option that's not IRO et al. If we could come to some concensus regarding material, options, geometry and get them naked that would get my creative juices flowing. How cool would it be to have a gallery of all the wild builds from fg/ss forum folks who started with the exact same base?

After reading the posts, I would consider bumping up to the more expensive, but I would still want Al/steel.