Yeah, I always assumed the castles were already mostly built, and just didn't have a front door or complete paperwork for tax reasons. In fact, I can think of ten good reasons why castles are so quickly built. Another one might be that they aren't real castles, just miniature models, like Camelot in the Holy Grail. Or that it costs 300lbs of gold to send a message back in time several generations to start building a castle. PvK, I like realism as much as you, but you're a little uncreative sometimes. Maybe you should go back to MOO and play Klackons.
Re: gold output
Threaded Mode