Bad in store experience

I was at the downtown SF store this morning, looking to play around with a Macbook Pro as i am in the market to get one fairly soon. The only place they had them in the entire store was in a semi roped off area with one entrance. I assumed it had something to do with the iphone because everyone in there had one. There was no one at the entrance, and since it was the only place that had the MBP, i went in to take a look. I must have been there for a good 2 or 3 minutes when a security guard and an in store Apple guy came over and told me i couldn't be there because this was the iphone activation area. I told them that i was in the market for a MBP and i just wanted to play around with it. The Apple guy told me that unless i was going to buy a MBP today, i had to leave, and then promptly escorted me out with the security guy giving me the stink eye the entire time.

Why exactly would they put all of the MBP in the entire store in an area where you can't even look at them unless you intend to buy it? Isn't that the point of putting them on display in the first place? Also, how exactly do they expect someone to spend $2000+ on a computer without having at least a little time to try it out first? This experience really makes me wish that there was some other company that sold the mac hardware, because sending that money to Apple just makes me feel somehow dirty now...