Andy, you forgot a very important trade-off: Development cost vs component cost. This is where a lot of screwups happen, e.g. for a product to be built in max 50 units, someone will spend weeks squeezing it down below 2k spending $2000 on the project to save $2 on the unit. At engineering cost = $2000 and 50 units, the math becomes 2000/50 = $40/unit and I am VERY sure that the guy who did is is still bragging about it. This is where professional pride and good business sense collide. Likewise I were very proud when I squeezed $1.85 out of a product to be built in 500.000 ex.

There is no method that fits all cases, ADAPT and have fun,

Erik