I bet downgrading a particular fork to remove adjustable this & that actually costs them more. Your having to stock more components, validate more versions of the finished product etc, along with all the other costs in putting the product on the market. Offering just a single variant would reduce component costs, logistics etc.
the minor changes in spec they use to differentiate and structure a product range are a joke too. Changing from a steel to an aluminium steerer adds £100 to the RRP of a fork with negligible manufacturing or material cost difference.
The fork manufacturers want it both ways but the free market wont let them. They want to dominate the OE sector buy offering bike manufacturers bulk discount whilst selling similar products at massive mark-ups to the retail customer. Then they get upset when the bike manufacturers dump their excess stock on the mail order market when another brand becomes the must-have. Years ago in the US I bought new forks from mailorder giant supergo for less than Manitou would sell me some new lowers direct when mine cracked.
I'm a fan of basic, durable marzocchis. A pair of 1999 Z3's of mine are still in regular use with just oil changes (original seals and bushes) and I've just got some 55R's (with all the unreliable adjustable gubbins removed to produce a bottom of the range but reliable fork) which I'm hoping will last as long.
