Pretty sure that was me. 
You would agree, I'm certain, that re-designing the BP-19 board to move the Balance buttons would incur some cost and, instead of just one board for two different products, there are two that have to be tracked, ordered, stocked. The program that runs the machine that makes the holes in the face plate would need to be tweaked to move those two buttons. More cost. A large volume manufacturer can spread those costs out across a lot of units with a likely small impact to end user pricing, a small one doesn't have that scale.
Every change has a cost. The variables are how much and who's paying for it.
Yes, but it doesn’t cost as much as you think. Redesigning the tracing on the PCB takes hardly any time at all and hardly any attention from an electronics engineer. A CAD operator can make the necessary changes in two hours and have the program derive the necessary data to be loaded into the machinery to produce a prototype board. The CNC machine work costs the same.
There was a time when manufacturers could make pretty much anything you wanted. When I bought the BDA-2 in 2012, Bryston was happy to make it a custom order with 4 RCA coaxial inputs instead of having 2 RCA and 2 BNC ones. That’s because the electronic designer in question put double traces on each of the inputs, allowing both connectors to be used.
This is what is expected from Bryston and companies like Bryston – the extra mile. Otherwise, you might as well buy a mainstream product. The “high-end” pedigree and breeding doesn’t just come from performance. It comes from the service the company is committed to providing to its customers. Cost comes second. There are very few companies still providing such service today, a lot fewer than people think, and it makes absolutely no difference how much money you spend. In some cases, the more you spend, the ruder they get.
So, while I would normally agree with your reasoning, it just doesn’t apply here.
Cheers – Antun
