It was all well and good for Ves to consider designing a space knight. He already knew that they sold for quite a decent profit margin for that product or product margin for short as long as they caught on in the market.
Knight mechs were more expensive than other mechs at the same level of specs due to the high cost of armor. The most expensive component of a mech by far was its armor plating. The thicker the armor, the greater the cost.
However, this also allowed mech manufacturers to get away with charging more for knight mechs than say a light skirmisher.
The market expected knight mechs to be more expensive, ergo the mech companies obliged by collectively bumping up their prices despite the stiff competition. Any mech that was cheaper than the predominant price levels were usually sold by small, struggling mech companies.