Neither of the GameStop guys even offered me a used or refurbished unit. So I suspect those are gone too.
Not that refurb is that bad a deal. Those at least have been back to the factory, went through testing again, and have a factory warranty and box. My refurb TiVo has had zero problems in all these years.
For a gift yeah, new is best. Refurb is cheap. Used is totally unacceptable.

You can never tell. And sometimes you can’t win for trying. They sold 700,000 last month. That means they produced 700,000 last month.
The original PS2 launch was screwed up when an earthquake damaged a chip fabrication facility in Taiwan, I believe.
Sony shipped the first half-million consoles to the US on specially chartered FedEx planes to make the launch date. At great cost. If production hadn’t been interrupted, they would have shipped by ship, much more cheaply.
This happens all the time. It’s almost impossible to address the surge of interest in a new American fad without overinvesting in manufacturing capacity. Apple has that problem all the time. Blizzard had it with World of Warcraft. Now it’s Sony’s turn.
I’ll keep my eyes peeled. Perhaps if I work from home Tuesday, I’ll hit the neighborhood GameStop early.

Well, the reason I specified a new slimline one is because at this point the only older models out there are either used or refurbished, and I didn’t want to get those.
As far as improvements, according to this review (and others I’ve seen) that while this is not a bad unit to start with, you’re better off waiting for a PSX next year if you already have one of the older models. The new unit has online gaming connections onboard, and a top-loading, spring-loaded door for discs vs. the original motorized tray. I think it also is supposed to have less problems playing all the various types of DVD’s out there, too. I had heard rumors of a better CPU, but it doesn’t look like that’s true.
And thanks! No luck so far, but we’ll see how things go.

Yeah, I’d heard the comment about Sony underproducing – even the New York Times had a piece on it (Bugmenot).
Thanks for checking, though! I really appreciate it.

Thanks for looking, anyway!

Re: I tried
Hey, no problem. That seems to be a common problem. Thanks for trying anyway!

Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to get by there last night. Do please let me know if you have any luck, though!