Nick,
You forget that it costs £30 (with insurance) to send the ECU to Germany EACH WAY (48 hr signed for delivery service) and also £40 to do a bank transfer to RP Labs bank account. Already that is £100 on the price .

Combine this with technical support that is offered and time spent answering the myriad of questions you get, it doesn't take long before the profit margin is totally eaten into and even gone . I estimate that each sale has taken me a couple of hours of my time answering questions BEFORE they have even bought the ECU . Quite often, you can spend this time and still get no sale, so to be honest, I don't personally think that the price is unreasonable.

The benefit of the L8 / S8 over other ECUs is that although it is recommended, if your loom is in good condition, you do not need to replace it like you would with T2 or Autronic . RP Labs also supports the OE injectors, whereas T2 needs high impedence ones - so another "hidden" cost that takes these ECUs way over the price of the RP Labs item, when you start taking all these into account.

Don't forget you also get the Data Stream program that Stu charges £135 for already as part of the mapping package, so if you were thinking of getting this - that is an additional saving .