Top flight kits haven't increased in price for at least 15 years. A $60.00 price increase spread over the last 15 years works out to be $4.00 per year or less than the 3% inflation number. Factoring in the labor and advertising costs, they had to be losing tons of money on those kits in the past few years.

I guess they figured they would rather make money on the kit or not sell it at all. To me, that's completely understandable, and the only way to stay in business.

Look at it this way, you can finish it with Chinese made products at 1/10th of the price you could 10 years ago, so in the end, it's still less expensive!