fsonicsmith-
that's a little late regarding how bike manufacturing works. It has been in play since the early 90's on a large scale. I worked for a Taiwanese OEM frame manufacturer that made frames for all the recognized names-Bianchi included. There are a handful of that make the majority of mass market frames across the board-low end to high.
I doubt there is another person in this thread who gives a damn about bicycle frames but I would and do quibble with your dates. I may not have been in the industry but I know bikes as a former sponsored amateur. Giant and Trek came out with consumer CF in the early 90's but the TdF squads did not widely adopt CF until 1999. I just confirmed for myself that in the '98 TdF most squads were riding aluminum. Those early 90's CF frames were not competitive with Ti and Al.
And I am no stranger to custom steel and likely know more than you do on that front as I have met close to 50 custom builders at various shows and own four customs, a Weigle, Landshark, Rob English, and Speedvagen.