Maybe, but have you bought anything like that recently? Probably if you know the right place to shop or the right people it wouldn't be much more, but I needed a bit of metal pipe to use as a lever and spent $40 on 3ft of 1.5in diameter pipe at Lowe's. I don't think I paid much more than that for the ratchet set I was using it with.
I buy steel all the time. certainly not at Lowes. its about $.90/lb for hotroll now.
edit: the issue is they only sell 'wholesale' quantities. 20' sticks, 4'x8' sheets
OK, that makes sense. I didn't want to have to deal with cutting the pipe myself and so I didn't even consider buying a larger size or anything like that.