Road Wheels & Road Wheel Recommendations?

It's often the case that buying replacement rims for factory wheels costs nearly as much as buying new wheels, since whole wheels get heavy OEM discounting but spare rims don't. Shamals have weird spokes and nipples too. Looks like about £200 each for rims, plus any spokes/nips which need replacing, plus labour and you could be looking at well over £500, when complete new wheels are under £700 for which you get the benefit of the latest model and shiny new cassette rotor and bearings. You can probably punt out your old ones to somebody for enough to cover the difference.

Thanks for that, stands up to what the chap from Cadence alluded to.

How about taking the hubs and applying to a new rim/spoke combo rather than going back to the factory standard? Or are factory built wheels essentially one-use only and it's pretty much over when the rims wear out?