Yeah, those places are hit and miss.  I've run into recycler guys exactly like that guy.  I probably ran into the worst of the worst at one point.  I think there's a thread on here somewhere, but there was a guy with a new old stock original 128k Mac.  He was trying to sell it for gold scrap.  I emailed him telling him it was worth more as a collectable vintage computer than any gold he could get out of it.  The guy was off his rocker.  He wrote back a horrible email about how he'd rather destroy it than let a nerd get it.  Filled with nothing but insults, ranting about his Alfa Rameo, blah blah.  It was so random and weird.  Couldn't tell if he really was in the business, or simply got off trolling random people.  Maybe XBox Live was down and he didn't know what to do.

Sometimes you have recycler people who are in it the business because they like technology in general, and see good value in recycling it (not for scrap, but as in working products.)  Excess Solutions is one of those places, so is Weird Stuff.  The staff there are genuinely interested in the stuff, and often very knowledgeable.