As for me, I just dropped another $100 bombshell purely on gold-plated PCB receptacles. I have two Duck Eagle PCBs on the way, and each one is going to be fitted with these in order to have hotswappable, backlit able Alps. Also have two of LeandreN's Carbon Fiber plates on the way specifically for this build.
I already spent $65 on some tin-plated receptacles for the first Eagle PCB, but since this second PCB is going to be untouched, pristine, with no desoldering, I really wanted something special, hence the gold. Wow, E3E. Could you be any more vain? I just realized how much more expensive this costs than SIP sockets. It's ridiculous. More than 10x the price to do a 60% board.
I really need to stawp. Next, I'm looking at an SGI key pad with 34 windowed 1u Alps caps for this backlit Alps build to really shine.