This combines to ensure that any solar installer will do lots of very expensive things: 1) have a large sales force to close the sale, which last I looked accounted for 30%-40% of the overall cost of solar in the US, 2) roll out trucks many different times during the planning and install, each costing lots of money, 3) never have to compete with a bunch of other hyper-competitive installers and find efficiencies like batching installs together in the same general area.
There are also massively high solar PV tariffs in the US, more than tripling the cost of the panels, but that's not even that big compared to the rest of the needless inefficiency in the system.
String inverter, commercial panels on your roof, and helping you calculate the number of panels with the max ROI are other things to look for.
Even then, you may not be in a state where you have good installers, unfortunately.
Of course there are two issues that are completely solveable if we had reasonable governance:
1. Adopting an Australia-style solar installation regulation and permitting scheme, which is literally 1/5th tho cost of the US method, and pays their tradespeolpe higher salaries than US workers get
2. Allowing EVs to feed back into the grid. This is something that naysayers would never be useful because nobody would ever want to waste battery cycles on their home. Which of course has always been nonsense. Don't buy EVs without this basic capability, IMHO.