Hey puddsy! thank you for the feedback it means alot! So when checking the quotes that we got from SP we saw the the difference between having R5 in base was $3 dollar difference at the MOQ we are aiming. So I though instead of having someone else pay $15 to $20 extras just for a single row it didnt made a lot of sense to me at least. I might be wrong but what do you think? Even having it at base I feel confident that we can still aim for that $115 at MOQ 150.
personally i think more people will buy a seperate r1/r5 than will buy the INT kit, the conversion rate on NORDE is generally under 5%, but for profile kits it's generally high enough that it's worth trying, especially for $10-15.
i'm generally pretty preference neutral when it comes to profile, but i think tall F keys is more of a novelty than anything else, and might be a cool unique add-on. i don't think it's something worth including in base.
$115 base with a $20-40 add on (such as extension kit or novelties) is a pretty common rate to pay for a quality keyset these days, so i don't think it's a crazy ask.
some might say DCS is lower quality, but i doubt those people have used a DCS set extensively. few people who entered the community after like 2018 have. the keycaps are thinner, but quality is on par with GMK or CRP, maybe slightly better since the wyse legends have very few issues aside from "some people think they look weird."
with enough vendor support you should be able to get all kits made for this at a reasonable price.