Hi Tim,
Sadly I think the only way of bringing costs down would be to have some level of self-assembly, otherwise you are paying someone else his labour rate to assemble it for you. If I`m not mistaken, you can buy a Blade from Vectorworks to any level of completion, from hulls only to a full boat, and choose your own fittings, sailmaker etc. This is the way to go to reduce costs, but requires some effort. I can understand that a new sailor would feel apprehensive about doing some self-assembly without assistance of some sort.
Our class actually has some folks who were not catsailors before buy the plans and build the whole boat themselves, including plywood hulls. The class "leaders" put a lot of time in to answer questions and go round to the newbies house to help them put their boats together the best way. One such boat was out racing last weekend, with a more experienced skipper helming, helping the new Mozzie sailor to learn the ropes. That is what makes our class successful, we don`t have huge numbers but we always help eachother out.

The success of classes such as the Optimist are based on these principles - in the formative years dad could build an Opti for his kid in a few weekends. Although this has changed, they have reached critical mass and have a huge international presence, with too many boats at a worlds to count, this makes them the boat of choise for aspiring young racers. Many of the guys on America`s Cup boats started on Optimists, while most Hobie (or any cat) sailor stays with catsailing, so cats are not seen as stepping stones to bigger things.