Research is never in vain. We at least learn from it.
About buying from the big guys though, I have to say when I shop the same components, they usually do it for the same price or even cheaper. They have more buying power dealing in quantity.
Where this ends is in the options though, so they give you a good base price knowing you will sell yourself more, bigger, faster, before you actually add to the cart. But if you have shopped the 'bumps' too, you're aware of it and don't fall to an emotional escalation.
I've built many systems and have found it always cheaper to buy some base model and continue building it from there. At the very least, I start with a system that is matched and tested to begin with.
I know the arguments of proaudio considerations, but many of those necessities of 5 years ago aren't even relative now. I do remember when they were though.
Some of those companies will ship with no bloatware or even without an OS as an option nowadays. And even if they do. If you get the smallest drive they offer and replace it with what you want as soon as you get it, you still come out ahead in many ways.