Gah! I totally agree. As i ease back into brewing and have to rebuy everything, i'm finding this with everything. One shop may have an item, but its way overpriced, another has it but not other stuff.
Home brewing, despite all our love and devotion, is a niche market in the grand scheme of retail sales. Even the big online retailers like Northern Brewer have to make tough economic decisions as to what items to stock.
Some online home brew retailers have decided to specialize in segments, like Bargain Fittings offering solutions for kettle, converted keg, and cooler fittings such as bulkheads, valves, camlocks etc.. I am guessing Wayne's inventory is based on demand and he tries to stock products that he is able to sell in a reasonable amount of time.
Other online retailers like Northern Brewer, try to offer solutions for all our brewing needs, be it equipment or ingredients. To do that they have a wide selection but they are still a "Jack of All Trades, Master of None." That said, I order some stuff from them too and I like their customer service.
We also tend to "jury rig" some of our equipment and those types of parts needs can only be served by suppliers like Grainger or McMaster-Carr
Bottom line, take the time to do as much design of equipment needs as possible. When you develop a parts list and suppliers of those parts you can order what you need at one time from a specific set of suppliers reducing per item shipping charges.
It makes it tough for all of us on a budget wanting to gradually build our breweries but I can think of no other solution. I didn't a do a good job of this, based on the number of orders I have placed
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