Now that you bring "the market" into the discussion, let me answer on that basis.

Market wants very cheap programmer
The "market" don't give a hoot, if you make 100.000 widgets, what does it matter if the programmer cost $1000. Many, that buy 1 or 10 chips consider themselves the "market", I can inform those that the vendors could not care less about you if you buy less than 10.000 chips.

very cheap microcontroller
Nope, a very cheap solution. If a given uC can save me 2 extra chips, I will gladly pay a bit more for it. For instance the 668 is quite costly, but 64k flash and 8k RAM inside makes it a cheap solution in many cases.

I still feel there should be a tutorial on how to make a programmer.
There is, at www.esacademy.com see FlashMagic

Why don't you guys admit that you know how to programme but not how to make a programmer
I am quite confident that, should I want to, I could make a programmer since I have the instrumentation to verify pulses. HOWEVER, I can not afford to do so, due to the work involved every time I would want to use another derivative. Our Industrial programmer is updated monthly with the capability to program chips new on the market. The option of locking myself to the very few derivatives that a simple programmer can handle would put us out of business.

Old schools like me never attempt second chapter without mastering the first.
If you have two books on two totally different subjects (microcontrollers and kitchen table programmers) you do not need to read one to be able to understand the other. Do you know how to build a car?, probably not, but that does not keep you from driving one.

Erik