Who buys a phone at the store?
Um, many many people? Why do you think there are Cell Phone centers in every Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc. in the nation? Or T-Mobile, Verizon, etc. retail stores on practically every street corner? What do you think they sell the most of at the Apple store? It's not $5K laptops. I live half way in the sticks, and within ten miles of my house there are at least 15 stores that sell cell phones at retail (not even counting places like gas stations that sell prepaid junk). And like 5 that sell groceries, for comparison.
Retail is shrinking everywhere (try to find a box store with any selection of physical media, for example), except for cell phones - because they sell so many of them. They wouldn't have dedicated employees in most stores for them if it was just for repairs/returns. Not profitable.
In any case, like the question of audience in the actual topic of Magic Bands - I think you believe what may be true for some people is true for the majority. The majority of people don't pre-order the newest phone online, just like the collectors and such who are scrambling after these things at launch are not the majority of the sales. The majority of the sales are going to be from people going to the parks, seeing they are missing out on something (Bounty Hunting, statue interaction, etc.) and they are going to be impulse buys.
Those that are fawning over them and love them - great. I used to buy pins. I get it. If Disney weren't the micromanaging boot camp that it has become and I was going regularly, I'd probably pick one up once they get into cooler designs. That's all beside the fact that clearly, battery capacity is a surmountable issue, and by having it be an issue - that you can't at least update it and get a few hours of use out of it before it has to be charged, is at the very least a big missed opportunity for them.
I'm sure they are already working on updating the app to reduce the 60% battery threshold to be updated - the easiest band-aid fix they can do at this point, until they address it in manufacturing/packaging. The 60% seems really conservative to begin with, I'm guessing they picked it to give it a wide buffer based what the actual technical limits are. The only reason for those rules in the first place are to avoid bricking a device by it losing power while it is being updated - and if these batteries really are meant to last multiple days once fully charged, 60% for what little data these things can even handle having transferred to them, seems like an excessively high number.
I always trade my iPhone in at the Verizon store. 
