[ultraman zoffy]

All the LCS's in my area are great, and at least from my part of Nor Cal to the San Francisco Bay Area, I think most of the shop owners take a lot of pride in their stores and maintain their businesses well, so I can't say I'd be on board for a big corporate chain comic book shop. A-1 Comics, Empire Vault, and World's Best Comics all kick ass in my city, and I can rattle off even more store names down the freeway towards as far as San Jose. Even if they don't necessarily carry the specific figures I want or in some cases charge a higher price for certain things, I can tell they all are doing their best to give the collectors and fans in the area a nice place to shop. There are, of course, bad shops out there, but the same can be said for chain style stores as well, and between the two, I'd guess that an LCS would be way more likely to take in customer feedback and act on it than a chain would.
Oh, and no pics of it, but to keep this thread going, I'll throw in another gripe of mine: shady bastards returning their failed customs to stores in package. Really, if you fk up, just throw it in your fodder bin for a possible future project and consider it a lesson learned instead of making the rest of us pay for your lack of skills. Sheesh.