Yeah, I'll go on record and say that making a limited edition strategy guide is really f'ing stupid. What, do they WANT to encourage their consumer base to resort to GameFAQs instead?
At least when Working Designs produced the Lunar 2 guide in minuscule quantities it wasn't because they wanted to purposely deny a lot of players the opportunity to get it; they didn't print many because it wasn't done until months after the game was out and most stores canceled their orders for it.