I have a local guy who does a good job powder coating for 50 bucks-ish, but it isn't a good job in custom bike terms, it is a good job in I- ade-it-myself-and-now-it-needs-to-be-protected terms. I a thread on the touring forum one guy said about 66% of the hours on one of his frames went into painting.

Calikid, I tend to think that you have to start out as you want to carry on. It is tough to set one standard and then grow into another. It is bound to happen to some extent, but it may help if the objective is the same, like making the nicest stuff you can, as opposed to making a downmarket item and then moving up market.