Update from Portland Oregon, went to most Best Buys and Targets from the Oregon/Washington boarder on both I-5 and I-205 down to Fry's in Wilsonville.
Arcade - Needless to say, all had Jasper Arcades, Jantzen Beach Best Buy was the newest with a build date of 11-06-2008. Week 44 I believe.
Pro's - Didn't look much at Pro's, but all Best Buys hovered around week 37-38 and had 20-30 minimum. Fry's were the newest, but no Jaspers from what I saw
Elite - Best Buys were all old. Found 1 in week 40, most significantly older, even found a 2007.
As a side note, all of the Elites found at target's, were from CSON, week 42. None were Jaspers.
All this brings me to a conclusion, after searching for multiple hours, mostly in vain as an Elite was my focus. I had to ask myself, what's so important about the Elite. Sure, it's black, but after you get over that, if all 3 systems (Arcade, Pro and Elite) are essentially the same system with different accessories, right? So if my math works out. Aracade ($199), 120GB HDD ($149), Wired Headset ($19.99) totals to 169.97. Only difference between that and the Elite is: Color, HDMI cable, Network Cable and games difference. So if you assume that most of us have a Network cable lying on the floor next to us, and probably a spare HDMI (I do), or pick one up at Monoprice.com for cheap, you can have an white elite and save $30.
The only possible hangup is backwards compatibility, which comes default with the Pro and Elite, but from everything I can find online, adding the HDD to the Arcade and downloading from Xbox live will fix this.
Now, on to my question to all of you, what am I missing in the above conclusion, because I've been staring at if for a few hours while at work and I've convinced myself that I'm missing something. So, as my third party eyes, what do you all think?