To elaborate on my comment above, without going into enormous detail...

What I disagree with, is the overall tone of Brad's 9 points is that everyone is trying to rip you off. There certainly plenty of scam artists in the construction industry, and as an owner/builder you should probably be on your toes. But all of the usual common-sense hiring recommendations apply: ask for referrals from people that you trust, ask for and call references, informally interview the people that you'll be handing 10s to 100s of thousands of dollars.

There's also a tone that all of these PMs, GCs, subs, and designers are sort of a commodity. If all you want are (free) bids on everything, you get what you're setting yourself up for. Unless the drawings and scope of work are extremely clear (as in handing every party a detailed scope of work), you're comparing different assumptions by different companies (say plumbers, for example), that have different cost structures to their own organizations.

One plumber may be a solo operator. His/her price is great, but will show up when he/she is able to. Is that going to throw off your entire schedule? Do you have a professional relationship with that plumber that may help? The second plumber has 30 on staff. Their price is higher. They have great plumbers and horrible plumbers on staff, but they can get there on short notice. The third plumber is a pair, their price was high as well. They spec'ed all copper supplies and a condensing boiler on their proposal, but you don't know why, you just handed them a set of plans. So who do you chose? Maybe you have another 3 plumbers on the list too. Maybe you called one of those plumbers for some other work, and when they showed up, you weren't ready. Think they're going to put a PIA factor on your bid?

I know who designed your frames, and he is without a doubt one of the most talented TF designers, and framers in the country. Pricing is very regional, so maybe that was off. There is often a ridiculous amount of blaming and miscommunication that goes back and forth between the builder and designer. Part of that is most client's unwillingness to pay for a real, full set of drawings. That's everything, every cabinet, every trim detail, all mechanicals, all selections on every finish and fixture. With that in hand, you can get a very specific price. Without it everyone is making assumptions. I've only seen that level of drawings on multi-million dollar projects. The project can work fine without all of those details decided at the design phase, but they do all need to be decided at some point.

There's lots more individual details that I strongly disagree with (cost plus, liens, building permits, selections, choosing your own subs!), but I'm just sticking to the big picture items here.

Lastly, if you're building your (presumably) dream shop and house, I feel like you've started off on the wrong foot. You should be excited, not bitter over things in the past. The people building your projects should be excited. You should be supporting them, and they should be doing the best work that they can (for the price). It's a crazy business building structures, but it should be fun.