After hearing all of your horror stories, I will never complain about the price of books again. Wellllll...not too much, anyway.
But yeah, I hear you about having to buy loads of books for one measly class and then you never use half of them. I had a French Lit. professor who did that, and I wasn't very happy. The bookstore won't usually buy those things back, and it's not like I'm really going to sit around and re-read French classics...so the best use I can think of for them is to use them to prop up wobbly furniture around the house.