Look at it this way, you are NOT alone. Home Depot has changed
many of their policies and will continue to due to because of people
like you. It cannot sell the item as new anymore because its not.
So off it goes to the discounted section. Is that cool? Nope, it just
means that they have to increase prices to compensate the losses.

What does it mean to me? Interesting, it means that I have to pay
higher prices and when it comes down to me returning something, they'll
give me a bunch of ****. I only return items that are broken (and get
another
of the same) or are still sealed in their original packaging (never
used)
If I buy hardware its going to be for something that I want to keep and
use in the future.

If your going to do a simple one shot job, buy a cheap drill or just
rent
one and abuse the hell out of it. Drills are pretty damn cheap.