I came across this article on buying a bike, and found it pretty informative. Might be helpful to any first time buyers or those looking to upgrade.
Wheel dimples most definitely have a benefit - in the wind tunnel. This article also conveniently avoids mentioning the large number of OEM kit coming out the Chinas and various online retailers which undercut the LBS paradigm.
True, but they do include a piece about online purchases, with the encouragement to have your local LBS assemble everything …
Of the bikes I’ve dealt with online (mostly for other people) they’ve all come effectively ready to go - torque the stem and bars and fiddle with cable tension just a tad. Nothing anyone can’t learn to do on their own in short order.
There are definitely some things I won’t do myself - facing BBs, pressing headsets, cold setting frames, but those things require more specialized tools that are costly enough and used so rarely it really isn’t worth it.
I still think it’s a big disservice that the piece of advice handed out automatically is to “take it into the LBS for a tune up”. Do it yourself and save the money to buy a new piece of kit from said LBS.