Steve,
Yes , it is difficult but finding an freelance engineer from India or China nowadays costs few hundred dollars.
I wanted to reverse engineer the Luigi Colani America's Cup yacht design for 6 meter scale model and I asked to a Turkish Firm cost 1000 dollars and two weeks. I found someone from India from engineering forums , He modelled the boat in one day and cost was only 100 dollars.
RP is cheap for small to medium sized objects too.
I dont see any reason to cost of product exceed 1/6 , if you are lucky and if you have will to send write tons of e mails to the engineer. They pay these engineers 15 dollars or less daily.
May be final part to part precise drawing could be done at Ukraine and similar cost with a broken Kiev as a guide.
Possibilities are endless with these prices , thats what American Companies do.
Umut