I was doing a foundation out in Manchester years ago.There was an 80 year old man living next door.I was busy scraping a bunch of borrowed,brand new form boards.The old boy come over and asked if he could buy one to make a work bench out of.I was always thought that it was a good idea for doing heavy engine work on.I want to say that we were paying 80 bucks a pop back then though.That old boy was an inspiration.He spent a good four hours a day splitting wood.These were some big rounds too.

Salmo,
Waste is something that still grinds on me.These days we have sacrificed a lot for the sake of speed.Most of those fasteners you found on the ground were because of a nailer-stapler jamming up or because they would take a little extra effort to feed in the tool.Same goes for all the half racks of framing nails you found.
The amount of wood required for framing,by engineers,is a huge waste too.Not just in material costs but energy costs.Wood is a terrible insulator.They built some duplexes behind my folks house and painted them with a high gloss paint.When it freezes you can see the entire skeleton of the structure,studs, headers ,plates everything.Really opened my eyes to this.

Sounds to me like The U-buildit program is actually providing the service they were trying to back when I tangled with them.That is good as I always did like the idea.

A good thing with this housing slump is that a lot of the rip off subs will fall by the wayside.Word of mouth is the best way to find a sub.A good sub will always have plenty of people to vouch for them.