[thelist] process / fair estimate / assumed knowledge

[Bob Meetin]

Some things that we encounter in this work are:

varying levels of expertise
the time to acquire new knowledge
assumed skills
punting on a task (enlisting a subcontractor to do a task you don't 
really care to learn)
how we bill clients in conjunction with getting up to speed. 

Some recent requests for project proposals have slapped me silly.  There 
is time involved in research ( emailing the-list, posting to forums ).  
Virtually anything we do, someone else has done.  I've gotten trapped in 
spending cycles in working up proposals which require substantial 
research to put together a 'plausible' hourly estimate.

My question is this...  How do some of the rest of you deal with these 
unknowns and billing appropriately for getting up to speed?  Where do 
you set the bar for fair and reasonable?

-Bob