Pricing projects in the service industry

I came across an article from a manager at a design firm, discussing pricing projects. My comment is down the list (look for the time stamp of 4/27/06 06:39 am) discussing the standard approach in my industry, environmental consulting. To me the article (specifically, the approach it proposes) is simply common sense. Reading the comments, though, I realized that the transparency and disclosure in my industry certainly doesn't carry over to other industries.

Pricing a Project - Blue Flavor: "I believe these days are gone. In the Information Age the consumer is in control, with the ability to discover exactly how much a thing costs, honesty and transparency must be at the heart of how you price a project."

Maybe it's because environmental consulting is a tight market, or that we're all engineers and scientists working for engineers and scientists, but I can't imagine the approaches some of the commentators espouse flying in my world.