I know, David. The one I bought a year ago at Radio Shack for $58 plus $10 mail-in rebate, was selling this past Christmas at Wal-Mart and Best Buy for $40-$44, and just last month Best Buy had it on sale for $35. It works very well for me!
I have a region-free player, but the only TV-on-DVD item I have that's non-R1 is "The Tripods" from BBC. I'm strongly considering getting the entire run of Ally McBeal, though.