i changed the batteries in my wavebird thrice in the 3 years i had it, once the month after i got it [cheap crap cells nintendo sends with it] and then about once every year,... haven't used it much in the past 7 months though.
wii sports, play, excite truck and ssx are fine on the wii remotes batteries, i seem to get longer than the 60 hours nintendo says... Re4 i reckon i have to change about every 30 hours, so thats in keeping with ninty.
LoZ;tp however runs them down really quick, must be less than 25... maybe its cos i use rechargables.

as for re stocking wavebirds, if they are selling for that much maybe it would be a good idea... though if nintendo have stopped production they might not have the dies, appropriate assembly lines anymore.

I've seen some third party controllers at WalMart. Any of those any good?

If you want Wavebirds... get them straight from Nintendo.com, they have them for sale there. I usually buy my hard to find Nintendo items directly from them. Also, their repair depots have some really awesome stuff for sale usually. I'd suggest asking where the closest repair depot is and going down and checking out what they have for sale. Last time I went, I found where a lot of old Saturn and Sega CD games had been kept... they had a LOT of old sega stuff, they even had hard to find Sega systems. I was tempted to buy their Sega CD (which was the really tiny one that also played carts) and a few games but having not been into Sega in the day, it didn't make a lot of sense for me to pick it up.

You know what else Nintendo needs to remake, and this is something simple they can do:

Electroplankton

It's over $50 and higher on eBay! I'd like to play the game, but I'm not paying that much before shipping even...

Someone should make decent looking Gamecube controlers, that's for sure.

Good thing I purchased a Wavebird when it was released ;)

Also, third-parties controllers just suck... I have a Pelican G3 and it just sucks, the sticks move by themselves and the buttons don't work and the only good thing is the rumble, which is powerful

That makes little sense Rol...

Yeah, Nintendo made the Cube robust, in case it fell and such...but that's not because they knew the cables would be too short...I'm pretty sure they felt they had the right length cables...which they didn't...

I don't care...cause I have controller cable extensions...adds an extra 6 ft, so we're good.

I would like to see a specially Wii designed Wave Bird with rumble for future Gamecube gameplay and alternative controller scheme play

Wavebirds get thrown so often and easily.

Though lesson at my old house: Wireless Guitar + 3 Wave birds + 3 Wii motes + games being played near constantly = $400/month in batteries.

They should re-release the Wavebird, but make it White with blue LEDs to make it look more Wii like and remove the GameCube logo off of it and just put Nintendo instead.

maybe add a few tweaks like Rumble and a better cross pad.