I'm in the Colorado area, front range-ish
I've seen that Jamis frame at the coop some years ago. They built it up to be a MTB for personal use. I had no idea it was a Hybrid frame.
I really wanted to go with MTB frame or (now hybrid).
I'm not surprised that your $100 frame build landed you at $400. It's what I'm expecting with my own build.
I don't have a particular budget but I know what I want my starting point to be.
Over the past couple of say I'm been doing more research about geometry. From what I gather 80's and more so 90's were designed with racing geometry. Between 2013 to 2015 Slack head tubes started to enter MTB geometry from downhill biking.
I don't know anything about the geometry changes in the 2000's, I'm guessing that period improved tubing material so I wanted to focus there
My cut off was 25 years because I was uncertain about frame and part compatibility ( the coop has parts mostly from 90's forwards). I'm also trying to stay away from old school BB and center pull brakes. Also I don't have tools for some of the older bike components.
I'm not ready to build yet. I'm probably going to start late next month, I'm just looking for info now.
Sorry about being defensive.