"Yeah, I guess we are a ways off from 3D printers or affordable CNC"
CNC will never be a 'cheap' option, I think, because the production runs would be too small to gain the benefit from CNC, & anyway, the operators are paid serious money, which would have to be recouped.
3D printers are actually not very expensive if you build them yourself. All the parts are available online & if you build a basic one then you can print the extra parts you need to improve it.
Cost of things you print with it are governed by the cost of raw materials, however.
We have one where I work & which we use for prototyping because it's cheaper than a one-off machining of a similar part, & there's a strong possibility of using it for small production runs of parts that are currently (& expensively) made from metal.
Conventional production of plastic parts is not really an option for us here, because of the cost of producing the mould & (because of small quantities needed) would likely result in something like a floppy drive faceplate costing £150.
The only problem I see with 3D printing would be getting the colour right.
