Although not cost effective, I would build my own set of wheels when I need to lace up a particular hub/rim combo.....which is usually the case when I find a nice set of hubs or rims on Ebay, for instance. Otherwise, I buy machine laced wheelsets on special and retension them myself after putting like a couple of hundred miles on them. Cost wise, you can't beat some of these Shimano based machine built wheelsets you find on special, mostly through on-line dealers. I don't find anything wrong with them.