Always happy to contribute an ignorant comment; it's my specialty. Still sounds like Al ought to buy his bikes on BikesDirect instead of going to the local shop.

It took a while for someone to hit the head of the nail. It is all about price points. If you load up a frame with high end components that push it over say $8000 you are cutting down your potential market quit a bit. So you make it a $5000 price point with components.

I have always thought you should start with the best quality frame you can afford, wheels next and then the drive train. Other than weight and bling is there really that much functional difference between 105 and DA? It does bug me however when you see a very high end frame with the lowest end wheels out there.

That cheapo wheel strategy made the 2009 Cervelo S2 more attractive, with a very competitive (with its competition) MSRP of $5500 (I paid $5K even at the time). The only shortcut components were the cheesy R80 Shimano hoops and the Ultegra cassette. I didn't care about the wheels (bought Williams 38c's for $999 and sold the R80's on ebay for $250 or so) and I eventually got a D.A. cassette. So I wound up with a bike that cost about $6K with precisely the component mix I wanted, and at the time that was actually a bit cheaper than competing models from Scott and Cannondale, and I thought the S2 was a better bike, at least for me. The Scott and Cannondale models in the same range came with Mavic wheels I didn't want and had MSRPs of $6500+ as I recall. That did factor into my decision to go with the S2 at the time.