Steve
A sadly not uncommon scenario
I've actually been quite surprised how many "sales" staff you encounter in this quite specialised hobby/passion of ours who have either very little understanding or product knowledge ... or are just as you described "indifferent".
And yes, before the howls of protest, there are also plenty of good guys around as well!
But, let's be honest, ours is a quite specialised field and with the prices of most things being what they are (expensive) it's not too much to expect staff to know their stuff or do a little work to convince us it's money well spent?