[sliverstorm]

Custom small-time boards get expensive quickly when you shoot for tighter tolerances, which are necessary for truly tight spacing. If Raspberry Pi expects to sell 10 million units, then even a fancy board will cost nothing, but I doubt they are planning on such numbers...

[nobody31415926]

Board design is expensive for small units - but assembly costs for complex boards don't drop very much with large numbers.

Especially if Apple have every super high-end pick and place robot booked for the next n years!