I disagree...for some parts you might find a buyer, but for many items this isn't a realistic assumption, especially if ALL of us are going to be forced to purchase parts that are commonly deleted in favor of a popular 3rd party option. The number of surplus parts looking for a new home is going to go WAY up if Van's does this. There's not going to be enough second-hand market demand even if you're willing to give it away. Look at the number of RV-8's with Show Planes cowl and the Grove streamline aluminum landing gear. There just aren't enough ground-looped RV-8's out there needing replacement cowl and gear legs to find buyers for all of them, and these items aren't trivial to ship either. They belong in a kit destined for a buyer who needs them, not collecting dust in the corner of hundreds of shops until the builder or their estate sale finally sends these perfectly good parts to the landfill.
Totally agree, disallowing parts deletions is way worse than the price increases. Some folks (mostly with completed airplanes or the 'assemblers' who are happy with the stock kit) have suggested this is a good and necessary step for Van's to streamline operations. Van's has been doing this for fifty years and it was never a problem. They got to Chapter 11 because they failed to raise prices during a time of high inflation & parts shortages resulting in long lead times, and had to write off thousands of laser cut parts and QB's with bad primer. They've always given you a credit for deleted parts that is well below the list price of the part...arguably, they make more money on my kit purchase if I ask them to delete a $1000 part and they give me $700 credit for it. And it doesn't hold them up from shipping...their new policy requires them to have 100% of the parts in stock to ship my kit. What if I want to delete the wheels & brakes, and they happen to have a shortage of wheels and brakes in stock? They could actually ship my kit sooner in that case. And it's not like Van's doesn't have a pretty good idea how many deletions they typically get for cowls, spinners, gear legs, wheels/brakes, corrugated aluminum seatbacks, etc...they have enough order history to plan their inventory needs accordingly.
I get that the 'no deletions' policy simplifies things but the consequences of this change are way bigger than the price increases IMO. I think we're seeing the end of the golden age of homebuilding (2000-2020) where you could get a really good airframe kit at an affordable price for a middle class guy and have flexibility to build the airplane you want, not be forced to just assemble a 100% stock aircraft and pick out the paint and upholstery colors. This is really sad.