Just make the magwell removable like on an SL-8.
Why would you volunteer to pay more than what they predict the cost to be?
You either have more money than you know what to do with or you know nothing about it and will be a broke slave your whole life. You sound like a guy I used to work with that said we were overpaid for what we do, dumbest thing I'd ever heard up to that point.
Problems with your idea (which is good but your cost estimate is way off)
-Milled lower, yes they are already available but are around $400 Canadian to purchase
-AR barrels? great idea
-off the shelf AR piston kit? There is no such thing unless you go with aftermarket systems that are $500+ Canadian to purchase. You would have to manufacture your own to save money.
-For a cheap entry level rifle that will without a doubt not have a match grade barrel and will be shooting surplus most of it's life I would rather have a nice set of irons like on a Swiss Arms and have a rail for dot sights if desired but somehow keep things low so the bore to sight height doesn't get too out of hand.
One thing everyone dreaming about a rifle like this becoming reality needs to realize and accept is that to have it come in $1000-$1500 the rifle will have a cheap barrel and will NOT shoot 1 moa or better. I know we've all been brainwashed into thinking that these rifles have to be very accurate or they are junk but this simply isn't reality. Any rifle in the sub $2000 price range will provide typical rack grade rifle accuracy, reality is that most rifles are not capable of the level of accuracy we want even at $3000.
Sure, take a $1750 BCL/NEA 102 and spend $400 on a new barrel and $400 on a trigger, then another few hundred on a BCG to make it reliable and then buy a new grip and stock for a couple hundred and you've got a decent rifle that is accurate and all of a sudden you have a $3000 $1800 rifle and it still has NEA/BCL on the side of it. I'd like to move forward and forget their past but they haven't shown that they have improved their quality control yet so to me they are still the same old company that has way too many warranty claims considering how few rifles are actually in customers hands.
I know some guys are claiming that their 102 shoots very well but I haven't seen any proof of that yet. The "match" barrel supplied is a turd with a "match" chamber, this was a huge mistake in a semi auto as it only makes the rifle finicky with ammo in exchange for an almost unmeasurable increase in accuracy.
The kind of accuracy and reliability we ask of our rifles is not anywhere near what we are willing to pay.
Agreed 100%
Don't worry, BCL/NEA will eventually build one (even though they currently say no) then you can spend half the money initially then replace half of it and end up with something decent.
If you've handled an ATRS product you'll see that they are not building some cheap rack grade AR clone. I don't regret my decision to buy one but I am glad I was able to take advantage of someone else selling it cheap rather than paying full retail.