Go phone Crownhill... tell them about your ordering problems... if they don't know they've got a problem then they can't fix it. For 1-off items, Crownhill's pricing is reasonable and I always recommend them... for quantity you can always haggle...

That aside, go build your own... you'll get change out of a tenner... standard 16x2 LCD, a 16F628 (buying one will help reduce Lester's F628 mountain *smiles*) and a resonator... and if you really want to be flash, a few jumpers or switches for baud-rate and polarity settings...