The real issue is expecting people to show up selling at a loss as if they don't care about the travel costs, tables, motel, gas, food, and working Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 12 hour days for what little they get. So, no, you aren't going to find dirt cheap bargains there. Most of the time. Why you go is to find the one deal for you at that show. You Have To Shop It. Deals are not going to fall into your lap down every aisle of the show. It doesn't happen in a gun store every time you visit, why expect the same guys with even more overhead to travel 100 miles away to price it cheaper?
The legend that the old gun shows were filled with bargains at dirt cheap rates is just that, urban myth. When you make $1.50 an hour, bread is 24c and gas pumped for 24.9, no, things weren't relatively cheap. It still was a matter of disposable income and even then shows weren't sold out by noon Saturday. Not even. Plenty of folks packed up Sunday night with 95% of their merchandise wondering just why the other guy had the hot items.
Gun shows have always been a hagglers paradise, which for guys like me mean I just snicker and move on. High prices, yes. Actually valid and the seller won't go lower, not hardly. I see people dealing all the time, it's my loss if I won't engage and get a better deal. While legendary it's still not impossible to walk in with one cartridge and leave with a box of the same and the gun that shoots it. It's really up to the each of us, and a personal inability to make it happen isn't the fault of the vendors.
If gun shows were that bad, they would have collapsed during the AWB and be relegated to fond memory. Didn't happen.