The thing most builders don't accept is that their time is worth so much more. If you are working 2000 to 3000 hours putting an airplane together, and value your time at 100 dollars per hour, you've now doubled the price of an RV10 as the actual cost. You can get a lot of plane for 3/4 million dollars. If your time is worth more than that, the math gets more extreme.
Sure, building can be rewarding, but at the end of the day that's 2 to 3 thousand hours you missed out on doing other things, like spending time with family, travelling, actually flying a plane, reading, fishing, etc.
I bought my plane from the builder. He spent 10 years building it, and who knows how many hours that was. He then flew it for 183 hours and sold it to me. I'm very grateful for his sacrifice, as I paid less than what it was worth in raw parts, and have flown the plane in a couple years far more than he did.
If we did the math for the builder of my plane, his cost per hour flying was upwards of 2 thousand dollars per hour, using 100 dollars per hour as the value of his time.
If you enjoy building, which I know a lot do, then this is a bonus and not a problem. But one must admit, many lie to themselves about what a great deal it is to build a Vans. When you do the real numbers at the end, it can be more expensive to fly a Vans per hour, than a TBM 900 if you're the builder. It certainly was for the gentleman who build my plane.
Vans is increasing their pricing because they made several avoidable business mistakes. Having the customers pay for several fatal business mistakes, which were gross incompetence in my opinion, through inflated prices won't work. You pay way more money, and still get the same sheet metal kit. All the extra money goes to them getting out of bankruptcy, and is not what the kit is actually worth.
Would you pay 150 thousand dollars for a base F150 because Ford made a bunch of stupid decisions? Or would you just buy a much better truck for less money from a company that didn't screw up?
I hope Vans survives, for the spare parts alone going forward, but knowing what I do about free market economies, their business model and pricing moving forward won't work.
Bankruptcy, selling to another owner, restarting with zero debt, under new management is more likely to work. IMO this is where this whole thing will end up. New ownership. It's an amazing design. Someone will come in and keep it going, and make money. It just won't be the people currently in the building.