Good find!
As far as the reasoning ... well, yeah, sort of. The price point of media is the bigger issue (and problem). Mitsubishi Chemicals Corp / Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (MCC/MKM), owner of the subsidiary company/brand Verbatim, is under poorly-thought-out (or entirely thoughtless) consumer (and therefore retailer) pressure to subsidize blank discs to $20 per spindle of 100, or less, because some low-rent competing brands do the same. That, of course, is accomplished by competitors by using low-grade crap discs, bulk bought from a manufacturer, and then printed with their brandings.
This started before MCC (or Verbatim) decided to simply outsource blanks from a lower-grade manufacturer, to achieve this goal. Retailers, OfficeMax in specific, probably took a profit hit (loss-leader sales?) on Verbatim for a few months before Life Series or Value Series started to hit retailer shelves. They had been selling for $30, then $25, then $20, and even $16 (after in-store ad flyer coupon) in the past 12-18 months.
With the release of cheap Life Series junk, prices have stayed at low-ball dollar amounts. That you found MCC discs for such a low price in stores is a good find, albeit unlikely. About 3-4 months ago, I also found 3-4 "good" MCC spindles in OfficeMax, for $16 each plus tax, in a semi-rural area. Even at that time, finding MCC in store was not easy.
No, do not trust buying online from OfficeMax or Best Buy, two common sources of Verbatim branded blanks. You're not likely to get the good discs at this late date.
Even
Newegg and Buy.com are sources I don't fully trust to not bait-and-switch for what they'd surely call "the same item" if cornered. I've read about this, and had it done to me, in past years on various items. And I truly hate the RMA/returns process -- it's wasted time, wasted money, wasted effort.
At this time,
Amazon, Supermediastore and Meritline are the only vendors suggested for Verbatim discs. Links to the best deals on these discs can be found on the review guide:
http://www.digitalFAQ.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm
Welcome to the site, thanks for posting, and hope this commentary helps you understand everything a bit better in context.