Equipment Vendors Restrain Color POD Expansion

Being somewhat frustrated with the high costs associated with color print-on-demand (I have a 120-page book coming that will require an astronomical retail price to accommodate even a 40% discount, which I'll need to get into certain catalog sellers), I contacted someone in the POD printing universe, giving my personal (and probably irrelevant) suggestion on how lowering prices could provide more impetus for small publishers to take advantage of these high-quality publications for their material. Got a very nice reply back, in full agreement. Apparently, one of the hurdles in lowering printing costs are "click charges," which equipment vendors (often the manufacturers themselves) add on when a company purchases a press, if the company is going to need vendor-based servicing in the future. Every printed page equals a "click," which is base price determined by the vendor. This is supposed to cover servicing charges. That gets added on to my bottom line, raising my print costs. LSI is trying to negotiate lower click charges, from what I was told, though it probably won't happen anytime soon. (I see that some new digital presses don't require click charges; wish LSI had gone that direction.)
So long as color is so expensive, color POD books with higher page counts will be expensive. That means fewer buyers, and less incentive for small publishers to take advantage of a great product.