Robb,
I don't want to disagree with you.  We do a lot of commercial work, all at hourly.  We don't do much cell tower work as they seem to be a pain on getting good legals to begin the work with and the clients seem to have a limited understanding of the issues involved. 
Fixing a starting fee of $1000.00 though seems excessive.  Personally, on commercial work I base my fee on my exposure, availablility of back title, and the purchase price.
Over the years we have done a couple hundred cell tower searches and have billed between $300.00 and $5000.00.  Sometimes they are easy, and if you can give your client an owners policy to work off,  your exposure is quite limited.  I'm sorry you think this is "screwing us", but I have a problem with "screwing" my clients.