The custom bag probably accounts for the most significant portion of their costs, and I know they need to make a profit on this, so I don't want to knock it too hard given it's intended audience, and we've discussed this aspect in the past.
Yes, it looks like the bag is the biggest outlay of funds for the kit. Most of the contents seems to lean towards the cheap-and-cheerful end of the spectrum. Probably usable and useful but not best-in-class. Still if it's what you had you could probably make do. The target audience for this kit probably doesn't have anything better to compare it to.
Adding to that, the "a place for everything and everything in it's place" approach is really satisfying for those who enjoy organization, but the drawback is the space seems largely accounted for, and I don't know how much room the end user would have to continue using the bag with significant customization over time, such as adding their own shelter that might include a tarp, tent or hammock, bug net, sleeping pad, sleeping bag, spare clothes and socks, etc.
Yeah, going back to the idea of the target market I can see why they do it this way but you're spot-on; it doesn't seem like it will be easy to add much to the kit. And there seems to be a lot of organization that comes at the expense of useful space. You could probably dump the entire contents of the kit into a 20 L hiking backpack and have a good amount of room to spare.
I suspect what would happen is the end user buys this because it's pretty cool, it sparks their interest, they start replacing components over time with better ones and eventually outgrow the bag entirely. That's precisely what happened with me and "personal survival kits"; I bought a pro force SAS tin, it sparked my interest in the subject, I started replacing components and eventually nothing of the original was left except the tin!
That's probably true. A lot of folks will buy this and use it as a springboard into learning about preparedness. On the other hand a certain segment of folks will likely buy this, figure it makes them prepared, then toss it into storage and never use it. Certainly in my own case I bought a few smaller kits over the years which I later expanded, or parted out to make other kits. In that regard I think Doug's original PSP is fantastic foundation to build upon! I have at least five of them, some stashed as backups and others serving as a base for larger kits.
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