[metalman]

they are very expensive, because the are all custom built, and need engineering drawings, while bieng regulated under the whims of the local building code....industry. The reality is that elevators are not "cut to length" from a big block of elevator stuff, and the machines with longer travels at greater speeds will have(almost) no comanality with lower,slower instalations. And very much like aviation, someone has to keep track of each registered elevator, the engineering drawings, parts lists, drawings for the parts, service procedures, testing and certification. And like say: doing a hot upgrade swap, on the OS, for a major telecom, downtime is taboo. Its not just a door, with a box and some rope.