William, the part  of your post:

Regardless of the $30-ish filing cost, people seem able to scrape money together to file and start a business,

should point out some of the problems with those going into any business,   "seem able to

scrape money together to file",    there are many other costs they probably NOT

considering, and thus are under-capitalized, and destined to fail sooner rather than

later.   Look at Chrysler and Govt Motors Corporation, even the heavily capitalized

giants can be brought down.