I may be the exception but the products I've bought and recomended have worked fine. My scanner is going on 4 years without a problem.
You just have to confident you know more then the clerks in the stores
They have excellent training. I learned everything I could about cabelling. When the cable installer tried talking down to me when my cable modem wasn't working, I ran rings around him and got straight answers.
The stores near me seem way behind the times, not to mention they don't have much of a selection in computers and software.
We bought a scanner after our wildfire last year and have had no problems with it whatsoever.
Glad to hear you've had such good luck with yours.