[Lil' Lavery]

Many people have always had a problem with the price of the FIRST Robotics Competition, but I can assure you the price of it results in no way from secret price gouging, IFI, or any other loony conspiracy theory. The high price of the competition has led to the creation of lower cost alternatives by FIRST (such as the FIRST Vex Challenge) and other organizations (such as BEST). If by some inane reason you feel that FIRST and/or IFI is ripping you off, I recommend you investigate another competition that may better suit your price range.
Some items from IFI or other suppliers you may find that you actually could make from raw material at a lower cost (provided you have the experience, equipment, time, and resources to do so), but you must factor in the both the labor costs, effort, and time you save by ordering from these suppliers. Also, as previously mentioned, you have to consider the very small niche market these suppliers are providing to. Most of these items have very little use outside the realm of large scale competition robotics (which, especially after the decline in popularity of combat robotics, are few and far between), and these companies get very little business outside of FIRST.