I believe Islander uses a fixed price system for selling their reels to dealers. I could be wrong on that, but when I looked around for an Islander, the prices were identical no matter where you went to.

Most of our local stores (at the time) didn't even carry one, so I had to get one via ebay. I didn't save any money, but at least I found one.

I went with the MR2 over the MR3 because I wanted a knuckle buster, not another clutched reel.

I know Sky-Guy got one at the same time, but I don't know if his is the MR2 or MR3. It's the cool blue one!

I fished the MR3 out of Gilly's boat and it was nice. Just a personal preference at that point.