[KenWittlief]

we need to understand the difference between 'cheap' and 'profit'.

FIRST is a non-profit organization. That means they are not making ANY money off this program - there are not a bunch of FIRST stockholders somewhere screaming about profits and stock prices.

FIRST has done an incredible job of keeping the registration prices down - you pay $5000 for your first regional and $4000 for each additional regional you attend, and the championship is only $4000.

Since you only get one kit of parts, clearly it costs about $4000 per team to host a event, and the kit is being sold to you for approximately $1000.

so do you want FIRST to go nuts and put all kinds of expensive stuff in the kit - even if your team is not going to use some of it - because the only way FIRST could do that would be to raise the price of the first regional fee - would you rather pay $6000 or $10,000 for your first regional, so you can have a box full of really expensive stuff?