I use 99designs, mycroburst, and crowdspring because I can't afford a real designer now. I'm not "cheap". I understand the trade-off. Once my startup is making more money, I will invest in a more expensive design but right now, I just cannot afford it. The same goes for programmers. I will be programming as much as I can by myself but outsourcing programming tasks to help get the site done in a reasonable amount of time. Local designers and programmers really do not want to help out a bootstrap startup. I do not see any alternative at this point.