This is the response I would expect. You have a job to do and I respect that.
I do have a couple of honest questions for you too. Why do people assume that we are trying to hide something from you? We are hiding something, but we are hiding it from our competitors. We (from our experience) assume you are going to shop us around. We don't consider that fair.
Example. You put out an RFP that has some security expectation (whatever it is). I, being the clever devil that I am, meet or even exceed your expectation, but I do so at a far lower price than the next closest competitor. If I line item my quote, you can take my clever idea and shop it around and get a cheaper price. You benefit from my experience and good, money saving ideas twice - once from me, and again when you show my competitors what I have in mind.
If you give them my roadmap to success, any idiot can write numbers on a paper and beat my bid. It was my idea and I just got the shaft. I, and I am going to assume, many here have had that happen. That is why we push back. I said in the first answer I posted my answer would be no and it often is. But I can also tell you I do line item every day. More often than not, it is required to get the work.
This is not poker, but there sometimes is an element of gamesmanship. In poker, if you want to see my winning hand, you have to match my wager or fold, which means I win without showing my hand. You have to pay to see.
If you want to rebid the job using my clever idea, then please pay me for it. But of course, no one ever does.
We have no protection is my point and no, we don't care for that. This thread and others are really asking for helpful ideas for protecting ourselves and our ideas. The title of the thread is just poorly worded.
While I detest public bids, I do think they are the fairest way to do business. Everyone submits a sealed bid and they are opened publically. There exists no opportunity to shop someone else's intellectual superiority.