Hi, all--
WotC has nothing to do with sales of D&D to Amazon UK, so this isn't the place to accuse them of yet another conspiracy (or even to call them stupid). Amazon, like every other UK retailer, is serviced by Esdevium Games, who distribute D&D in the UK. You can direct your gripes at us.
And yes, I agree that providing online retailers with RPG books
shouldn't be rocket science.
Shouldn't. Unfortunately, Amazon in particular uses bots to place its orders, and in fact sellers generally
can't even talk to a human being about them. At the current point in 4E's life-cycle, the bots are having a very hard time understanding how much product to order. (And, frankly, so is everyone else--which is why, for example, PHB2 sold out almost immediately all over the world.) We do our best to mitigate the bots' crazy orders (high or low), but that doesn't always do the trick.
If you're having trouble with online sources, your best bet will almost always be your FLGS. If you don't think there's one near you, check out
FindYourGameStore - Find It, Play It.
Sorry for the inconvenience; things should get better over time.