I'm no mechanic and I've never worked at a shop, so take my opinion for whatever that's worth, but $80 is surprisingly cheap IMO. I just assumed that most shops in central Ohio were $100 or higher. I think location has a lot to do with it. A small shop in London charging $80 while a similar shop in Upper Arlington charges $110 wouldn't shock me at all. A buddy from work always uses a mechanic in Circleville for all his stuff, Jim's Transmission or something like that, and apparently the guy will swap an engine for $500ish labor. It might take him a while to get to it but that's crazy cheap regardless, and my buddy isn't the type that would BS about stuff like that so I believe him. He's had his Eclipse, his Ram, and a couple other cars swapped there. But there are so many variables involved so comparing labor rates between shops is rarely apples to apples, which is kind of my point I guess.
From a customer's standpoint, I honestly don't care about how much I'm being charged per hour for quality work, as long as it's a fairly reasonable estimate for the situation. It's really annoying when a shop quotes you $1100 for a heater core replacement or $2200 to replace some drum brake hardware. If a goof like me who has never done the repair before can get it done in a couple hours, why am I being quoted so high? I know why, it's usually because the shop is busy and doesn't wanna fuss with it unless I'm dumb enough to actually pay that price. One of my idiot friends really paid $1800 to replace the cat converter on his Pontiac G6. The guy told him "Pontiacs aren't made anymore so the part is really expensive" and he was dumb enough to believe him. "A fool and his money..."