[loeg]

> One could buy a bicycle costing several hundred (or even a few thousand) dollars or euros with a lighter body, fancy brakes, suspension and so on, but you’d still get sub-par saddles.

I think the fact that saddles are so individual means that high end buyers expect to be replacing the saddle that comes on the bike with their own personal preference. So brands are incentivized to compete on cost and equip the bike with a cheap saddle since buyers aren't comparing full bikes on the basis of saddle.

> As a non-cyclist, I’m curious to know if there’s even any kind of standardization to fit saddles to any bicycle

Yes, saddle rails are extremely standardized. For most saddles it's a pair of "7x7mm" circular rails that get clamped by the top of the seatpost. (Carbon-railed saddles use 7x9mm rails, I think, but that's a pretty niche part of the market.)