doctors and lawyers also are licensed, highly regulated and heavily insured, not to mention the costs/school to become one. So I understand their fees. I'm not near qualified enough to compare my designing/installing a Media Room with open-heart surgery.
Most everyone In my market will do onsite/proposals for free - not just the trunkslammers, even the large established companies (Even Magnolia). Its just the nature of our market. I personally know just about every AV business owner within a 200 mile radius.
if you are able to pick and choose clients and charge them for this - then you need to be thankful that your market is not as competitive as ours.
it sucks.