Aristotle said “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Despite the myth of economies of scale, the reality is that the foundation of modern business is not drive prices down to their lowest logical level, but instead to maximize the profit margins of a given item. So in the absence of competition all the improvements of the economy of scale is turned into pure profit rather than a lower price. The component rate variable reflects that aspect of reality. Once again, I'm focused on modders, so I've defaulted it to reflect the current game behavior. So there is no requirement that this be implemented until the proper changes to marketplace have been implemented, which are on the roadmap for 2.6 already.