Nah, that guy was serious I think. I've run into a few like that before. They are typically engineering types and have such "tunnel vision" focused on stats, they really can't comprehend any subjective quality to anything. Everything is black or white and rigid stats are king.
Actually Bobby, if you do want to try your hand at building yourself, look at partsexpress.com. They have reasonable prices on parts, and even kits, to build your own. One downside to consider though is that if you don't like it when you are done, you can't return them like you could a...