There really doesn't seem to be an engineer on youtube that is actually a carbon expert. I believe PT is a mech engineer (not sure of his specialty) and Hambini is a engineer that specializes in bearings and machining (?)...when these guys delve into giving opinions on carbon it seems like they are out of their depth and not much better than channels that do things like cut frames up and say stuff like 'ooh, this is glued up neatly, or this wrinkle looks ugly and maybe it's a bad part of the frame.'

There's Luescher Teknik but he doesn't really make a lot of content or comment too much on OEM frame stuff.
There's that Jordan Coleman channel and he has some carbon expert dude but that entire channel reeks of BS and shilling so bad I don't watch anything from it.

I find it always a bit weird, when people blaming Chinese to establish and developing their own brand and confidence, whilst being completely fine with the absolute insane marketing bling bling of western companies.
As I am in Europe, US top tier frames are simply…nuts, pricewise….
So when I am comparing let’s say Tavelo with high end, or even mid tier prices, it’s still half or a third of it.
And please let’s not forget….even combining US + EU market size….China is bigger than both….

The lightweight Tavelo is $2400 and 800g+ (it's listed as 700g unpainted in small, which always winds up being 100-170g more in reality).
The non S-Works SL8 frameset is $3500 and just under 800g painted.

granted you get a handlebar with the Tavelo, but that's not really a massive plus since the value of that really isn't anything better than a cheap bar from Ali in consumers eyes. When you're dumping that much cash into something, factoring things like resale become huge, with the Tavelo there is going to be very little resale where as you can see years old Specialized stuff still selling for a lot of money used on places like Buycycle, Ebay, etc.

A Giant Propel frameset is $2,800...

When the prices are getting this close, there is absolutely cross shopping happening. I'm currently in a state of which frame to buy and I'm definitely split between building up a OEM and established brand like Specialized, Giant, Canyon, etc. and feel like I'm really being pushed to buy the latter.   

I've owned 7 OEM/Generic frames over the past 10 years and 8 established brand frames of various materials and types. I very much disagree that OEMs offer the same sort of ride or performance that the most branded frames do, I think they can be very close, but there has always been something lacking in how the frame feels in general. When you combine that compromise of a slightly inferior ride, with a price that is getting closer and closer to brands, it really stops you and makes you say 'what's the point?'

As far as the group ride OEM absence...I think a lot of that has to do with the sort of personality that gets into these activities and there is going to be a strong social element of "keeping up with the joneses"  and these activities are very much an 'upper class' sort of thing.  I think there's going to be hordes of people that are more into just riding alone that aren't going to be pressured by the social aspect of showing up with some bike that cost $3000 to build instead of some swanky $7000 ride.  There's also the aspect that OEMs generally require (at least in the US since they lack distribution) the rider to be adept at building their own bike up, which is not really normal for most cyclists. 

I think the price increase is from a couple things:

Trying to establish a brand
Inflation 
Establishing a brand now might be sort of a pre-emptive move as I think some hefty trade war actions and tariffs are in the future between China and the USA. If it's branded as 'expensive now' the cut to profit won't be as bad, or it wont look as bad compared to other OEMs which don't have branding, but are suddenly the same price as ones that do have a bit of branding.

 

Here's mine I built up about a year ago.
Overall it's been a pretty good frame. Pretty light, comfortable. For 700 bucks I paid it's pretty good, although it's not a frame I'd consider impressive or excellent in how it rides. Overall fit and finish/build quality was very good.

Couple complaints: 
This thing is an absolute brick aerodynamically. I have no idea why, but the thing really struggles to get up over 42mph on steep descents. The previous generic carbon frame I had (can't remember the brand) would easily blow through 45mph on 27mm deep rims and me not in any sort of aero kit. I have this bike on 45mm 9Velo wheels, I now have an aerohelmet, my kit is full aero/race fit and I weigh about 3kg heavier than when I was using the other bike and it's rare I get up over 42mph.  Very strange. I suspect the rear stays might be negatively effecting as they have a very flat face, the fork legs are also pretty chunky and not aero looking at all, very blunt looking. The tires I have on it are a little bit wider than what I had on the other bike, but these tires (40mm Challenge Getaway Pro HTLR) have about the lowest rolling resistance possible for a tire with any sort of tread, the other tires were slower rolling Gravel Kings at 38mm.

At that high speed the handling is pretty squirrelly, it is not confidence inspiring at all up there. Only carbon bike I've ever had that made me a bit nervous above 40mph.

Horrendous toe overlap. Constantly rubbing my toes on the front wheel if I have to make any sort of tight turns on the bike.

Overall a decent frame for the money, but certainly not impressive for the money. I've been searching for a replacement for some time, trying to figure out where to go with that. 

I like the rim depth, 40mm is uncommon, I imagine it's a bit better in crosswinds than 45mm which can be a little much sometimes in strong wind. The weight is also pretty amazing for that depth. 
I'm ambivalent to the inner width, I'm on 21mm internal right now for 40mm gravel tires, I think they are fine.

I don't like the large decals or the brand name to be honest. Chinese brand names always sound strange to Westerners in my opinion, like some random word is just picked out of a hat. 

I kind of want some Chinese brand with Chinese characters on it instead of Greek alphabet, I think that'd be a pretty interesting look.

Yeah, that one is topping my list at the moment for a new road bike build.


Bigrock looks meh...like a OEM from 2014. 
These companies should do some consulting for naming their brand if they are interested in US/Western sales, they are usually really sort of awful. "Elves," "Bigrock"....

I have been reading so much on the forum that it is now so confusing to choose a "good frame"

I was originally going for LC017 but the down tube being as straight as a wall which is a no go, now I think that I will go with the Hygge model S but I can't find any picture with a clear view of the down tube shape.

Has anyone had experience with a bending head tube when you push on it (it is a common issue I've read about LC017)  with this frame ?

PS: If anyone wants to suggest me a frame I would be glad, I'm looking for a light climbing bike but not at the cost of aero like LC017 down tube.

You can't know much about aerodynamic efficiency by just looking at something. You need to test the stuff. Look at the nose of an F1 car, it's a very boxy shape.