I used to love Tandy when I was a kid and first got into electronics, and even in the 80's they used to do low-end consumer electronics. In fact my first 'walkman' was one of their brands - a monstrous brick that had play, FFD and stop/eject and ran through 4AA cells in about 3 hours. The sound quality was crap - and God only knows how my hearing survived the volume required to get anything resembling bass to register... but hey - they were the days of wonder, where for the first time it was possible to carry music with you when you did your paper round.

On the one hand, it's a shame that they hung their boots on the consumer electronics peg - as most of the stuff is just overpriced junk. But on the other hand, I think that they've done well to keep all of their stores open. Hobbyist electronics just doesn't support a store in every mall, and the fact that I can get some basic components within 5 minutes is useful from time to time.
My biggest gripe is really with the product knowledge of the staff - it seems now that if it isn't a cellphone or related calling plan that they don't know squat. But there still very 'helpful' and I've learned to dismiss the first staff member that I clap eyes on when entering the store so that I can browse in peace.

My other gripe is with some of the component availabilty - it's a bit stone-aged in some respects. For instance, they stock a 1489 compatible RS232 receiver chip, but not the 1488 transmitter (hmm..did I get those numbers the right way around?..anyway) . Both of those are archaic anyway, and they'd sell a lot more MAX233 compatible devices if they sold them instead.