Interesting.
Absolutely viable if one is doing it for oneself, one can make a smashing boat for very low coin. I'm building a second now, and a third is staged.
The quandary is, farming out any services is absolutely budget-busting, no margin left.
IF one can sew, so much better. but even pre-made skins and bulk foam is 5k and rising. more for open bow. the hours to just break upholstery down and reinstall is immense.
its easy to put in 400-700 hours to make something impressive, soup to nuts, new boat equivalent. i recently built one, without repower, for 18 all in, thats boat,trailer,cover, platform, speed control, de-foamed, floor leveled and reinforced, cables, helm, hoses. Every component scrutinized, replaced or refurbed. Then, say it was somehow worth 40 to someone after that, thats 'paying me' 30 bucks and hour or so in this 700 manhr case, 😐. pre tax..
55k could make a smashing boat! Unfortunately If one spent 55k to make such a boat we all desire, and one could sell for 60k, thats 10 bucks an hour for 500 hours of work or so.
Boat 2 will be extensively modified to have mind-melting performance (for what is), and, will do some things better than 100k+ new boats, including skiing. challenging myself.
I concur careful weight control is a major factor and solves multiple parameters.
However all that said, i'm also not chasing ZO solutions for myself either.