With all the web 2.0 stuff coming out, and all the site builders out there, people who haven't tried it for themselves may not know just how complex a task it is to design and develop a truly good, maintainable, scalable web site. They may think that people can go to a template site, download a free template, slap it in place, et voila. While that is one avenue, it isn't one I personally would recommend for business sites...even then, you have to know what makes a good design, where the good template sites are, and how to integrate them with whatever back-end tool (or even site building tool like DW) that's being used.
Plus there are issues of usability, information flow, mapping...all kinds of things.
There will always be people who want information, want to do as much as they can by themselves, and don't realize what they're actually paying for by not paying money to a knowledgeable professional. (Then again, some of them might have paid $250 for a four-line listing in some online business directory back in 1998, and thought that it would bring them instant riches or at least get their business "online". Now they're gunshy.)
These potential clients are ignorant of all the little things that go into quality web design, and may be cconcerned with paying far too much for things they could just as easily do themself (or have done by some outfit in a third-world country). It's all a communications issue.
Analogy: if a house is poorly built, it can come crashing down. Even a nonprofessional can see those results, and quickly get a good idea why they want to hire professionals (or at the very least, buy a damn good kit). If a website is poorly built, it's not as easy to notice the problems unless one is a trained professional (or knows what to look for).
