seems to me like the united states SUCKS... ahem...
anyways, i think the best way to get glassware is to hook up with some 3rd year or postgrad chem students and find the local glass blowing guru and bypass all the bullshit. And make your chems from otc materials always, never buy anything special.
And really look into alternatives. sometimes pyrex isn't required, copper, stainless steel, silver, brass, pvc, hdpe, polypropylene... for your basic solvent recovery purposes, one can build something completely of off the shelf stuff. I recently found an engine gasket sealant which is rated to 150 degrees and resistant to water, steam, ethylene glycol, petrol and oil, and all the way down to -40 degrees... seemed to me a perfect way to make a cheap compounded cork stopper suitable for use in distilling xylene and toluene, and preventing it from falling apart from alcohol distillations... and soldering copper pipes is easy, just remember to clean it well and heat the pipe until the whole thing is smoking n shit, before putting the solder on... the solder is not cheap.
Also, some basic things can be substituted for certain things - for example, a reflux condenser could be replaced with glass tubing, a long glass tube will function as an air condenser just fine, so long as it's clamped to stay upright. PVC tubing (not silicone) is resistant to aromatics at room temperature... Aquarium heaters usually contain several thin pyrex tubes and are encased in a usually fairly large test tube... be careful pulling the thing apart as they use quite thin wall glass (of course)... and there's often quite a length of coiled nichrome wire in the middle of it as well, and possibly the thermostatic switch circuit could be turned into something else (the temperature sensor might be useful at least...)
All kitchenware made of glass and designed to handle boiling water being thrown into it is made of pyrex, and can be used directly on solid hotplate elements so long as you put the glass onto the element while it's cold and let it warm slowly (just to avoid the possibility of thermal stress making a mess of your lab bench... or starting a fire)
Ceramics can be used in situations where a lot of heat is involved too, and these things can even be made at home (and i'm sure you'll find other uses for the kiln)
Alcohol is an almost universally applicable extraction solvent for plant materials and can be produced with a home brewing kit and a home-made fractional still... With sulphuric acid you can turn this (plus acetic acid) into ethyl acetate as well...
...
when you start to look at the things around you, you will start to realise that so many useful things were right under your nose.
I still want a couple of metres of various different sizes of tygon tubing though, that stuff rocks, silicone and vinyl tubing just don't cut it.