A Great Custom Logo: What's the Value?

When one gets fired from the only project that's keeping his business afloat it becomes cause for reflection.

So I was hired by a group of "Sams (the Eagle)" to put together a direct mail type piece that featured all of their businesses. Throughout the entire planning meeting they shot down all of my ideas. They told me what they wanted the piece to look like (feature all six of their different business cards) and a totally non-inspiring headline.

I took their ideas along with some of my own and gave them four rough comps. Again they shot down all of my ideas. Long story short; I tried to educate them on the error of their ways, but they took it as me not following directions so I was fired.

Good. They aren't going to help me get to where I want to go anyway.

So where am I going? Or the better question: Where do I want to go? Because where I was going with the fore mentioned project and other similar projects was not going to help me go where I want.

I started to look for people and businesses that are already there. One such business is Plan B Branding.

If you take a look at the video on their site it shows some of their work then goes into a case study on one particular client. The case study explains how their client directly benefited from a complete re-brand that was implemented into an entire marketing campaign.

Since Plan B's design work is being used on licensed apparel it's easy to see and communicate the value of that particular brand. 

Applications and ad campaigns aside; what is the value of a logo?