>[S]omething that seems like it should be a simple hack made mostly of a handful of $1 components turns into a huge and expensive clown-car mess unless you already have a fully stocked workshop. People who tell you how easy this crap is are invariably people who already have a drawer full of every resistor, capacitor and relay known to man, instead of having to spend days waiting for the turnaround on ordering the components they need. So yeah, projects like this probably are simple and only a couple of bucks if you've already spent twenty grand building out your electronics workshop!
Sounds like a pretty good argument for hackerspaces.