Charging for service rather than selling the hardware makes perfect sense and IMO, if you're good at what you do, you should welcome the opportunity.

URC's product line would be a lot stronger and much further along had they taken a more liberal approach with distribution and sales. The installation industry would also be a lot busier, though at the same time more competitive. I mean, look at the sorry state of URC's software and firmware - does anyone report bugs? Maybe they're reported daily, but the lack of accountability lets them propagate.

I just really don't see the benefit of expressing hostility to a potential customer. Again, that's just really poor business skill - it's likely going to turn off many potential customers who also happen across the message. On top of this, nobody knows anything about the OP, including the reason(s) he needs custom programming or what he's willing to pay.

Can you imagine a Ford dealer refusing to do work on a Ford vehicle because the customer bought it from a Honda dealer, or god forbid, a used car lot? Or sorry, I'm not going to develop a web site for you because you didn't buy a computer from me. You might point out differences in these industries, but I'll point out the most important one. The people working in these industries already know that service is where the money is.

Charging $1000 for basic programming is however ludicrous and simply not in line with any other industry. Especially when most people re-use templates and previous layouts for pretty much everything. And in this particular case when there's duplicate hardware. It's when you get into creative solutions that the time really adds up. But I think some people throwing around numbers need a reality check and better explain the time commitment. But even so, who's to say that $1000 isn't what the OP was already thinking?

Bottom line, you don't know anything about the OP at all.

Sad.