For those of you interested in making a purchase, don't let this forum stop you.
I don't think the forum in general would stop people from purchasing X10 products; IMHO I feel the information here and the openness of the forum to allow unhappy customers post their beefs (in a politically correct manner of course) is only a positive for the product and the company.
Because of the original complaint of this thread, all potential new buyers who read it will now know what they need to get started. This is a positive result from an unfortunate mis-understanding by another customer.
Should there be more information available to inform potential new purchasers what's needed? Probably so, but the forum does get a lot of pre-purchase questions, and the forum with all it's members helps them make informed decisions.
Like you said...
do some research
...is the best advice, and the forum has been provided by X10 to help give their current and potential customers the information they want.