I completely understand your point of view scoot8801. Ive been in the sport for 5 or 6 years now, and belonged to this forum for most of those. I think that almost any question you (not specifically you but anyone in general) might have, has already been answered here... maybe even multiple times. so when you get the "cookie cutter" answer, its generally because its a "cookie cutter" question, the "grass roots" solution to your question is most of the time just a few clicks away, in an older thread. there are a lot of builds on here that go into great depth showing many different solutions to the same problem. the best advice i can give is just look through the build section and study every picture.
Im a college student paying my own way, so I know a little bit about budgeting. I am also the type that would rather do it myself then pay someone else to, but there comes a point where the time invested far outweighs the price of the manufactured part, and you will find that the experienced racers (most of who do a lot of the replying on this forum) know what parts to buy and what parts to build, and thanks to this forum we have a way of getting that knowledge out of them without spending all of the time, money, and heartbreak they did to figure it out.