It's unfortunate that Earl conducts business the way he does. Although I have purchased some good accessories through him, having a $25 minimum for orders is not customer friendly. He then has a miminum shipping charge of $8. -What if I'm ordering his custom night sights? While they're expensive (and quite good), I know they don't cost $8 to ship.
Ultimately, Earl's policies seem self-defeating to me. I have seen at least several people on the board post that they want one thing (such as the radiused screwdriver for the rear sights, a $3 item, or a T-shirt, a $20 item) and complain about the minimum amount deterring them from making the purchase. I understand minimum orders to a point because it's a waste of time and money to send someone down to the post office to mail a $3 screwdriver. However, there's a simple solution to that- Buy a bunch of padded envelopes at Office Depot and use a Pitney Bowes postal meter to weigh and punch out the postage stamps. -It borders on moronic to pass up selling a $20 T-shirt because a person refuses to waste $5 just for the honor of Earl processing the order.
I guess his practices will eventually catch up with him. Maybe they already have. As I understand it, he lost out as Walther's American distributor.