[jnbiche]

My local Radio Shack carries both Arduinos and various Propeller microcontrollers, along with sundry components for them (LCDs, wifi, bluetooth, etc). It also sells various breadboards and some really cool individual integrated circuits (hex and other logic gates), MOSFETs, CMOSs, and bunches of other cool stuff. And I'm not in a huge city or in California.

If you're into hobby electronics, it's worth checking out Radio Shack if you've not been in one for a while. They carry much more than just electronic kits for kids.

But I agree that the target market for these is more professional engineers looking to take a prototype into smalltime production, or an early protype into something more refined.