Quality or quantity? I'd rather have one bike that fit great than multiple that didn't, no matter how nice they were. Bikes that don't fit well are no fun to ride. There are well regarded builders with lots of frames under their belts who can build you a custom frame for right around 1K. Not cheap but in the scheme of things a great deal. Doug Curtiss/Curtlo is but one example:
http://www.curtlo.com/pricing.html
Actually, very good point. But then we would only have one bike and not have the experience of sampling numerous bikes.