It definitely sucks. The difference in quality between the pine boards my dad purchased at the hardware store for projects when I was a child, vs the pine boards available now when I get some for a project is NUTS. The number of rings visible on the end has dropped from a dozen or more to a mere handful, they’re way less dense than they used to be.

I fucking HATE buying lumber because it’s an all day ordeal to sort through the stack of boards to find a dozen that aren’t warped, crooked, knotted, rough edged, or missing a corner because it came from the very edge of the log. I almost wish they’d leave an open space next to the stack so I could stick all the trash boards there as I go through them, because only one out of every ten to fifteen is actually usable for anything where precision or appearance matters.

Or you can choose to pay a premium over the already absurd (but appropriate, considering the factors you mentioned) for “Select” grade boards. It’s legitimately difficult to build any kind of furniture type project under what it would cost to buy from a company producing the same thing using an economy-at-scale advantage.