299!?
Maybe the people you talked to were just unaware of those displayed at the front of the shop. Although, it's been a while since I've actually been there. When we were buying ours, we were almost turned away because the person we asked did not know about them and did not have any interest in selling them either They did tell us that those are very popular and they get large loads of them (from China, shhh) ... perhaps they just ran out
Those 299+ are the ones that are inside the shop - not worth spending time looking at them, so expensive. These imports are just fine for everyday DIY person (actually, they said that at the shop too!).