snipped:
>The future is customer options and personal configuration.

no it isn't. the future, as was the past, is about using
your experience to let a client know what works and
what is best. do you tell a physician what to prescribe?
as far as the rest of the post goes:
who is gonna make this stuff?
the framebuilder is the point man here that has the
experience to know what goes where and, in most
cases, why. if "industry" wanted to slow itself down
and make less, it would co-opt framebuilders. at
what point in time do you see builders working as
behind the scene assemblers? oh - and if you meant
that welding and industrial/machine shops would be
the fabricators of said custom spec-ed orders, where
do these folks get the information to produce a reliable
frame design. your hypothetical is interesting but i see
no way it could ever be real.
e-RICHIE