You can find Big Guns on eBay typically for $7, sometimes as low as $5. It's the retailers that are charging big bucks for them: BMPokerWorld is selling them for $40 a pair. If it didn't, he'd likely take a big loss on them.
The $0.99/pack deal was from Wingra Direct; I could be wrong but I think they're owned by USPC, but if not, they have a very tight business relationship. At first they had them for $40/pair, but shortly after I bought mine at that price, they went to closeout last month for $0.99 a pack just to get rid of them - financially they were a big flop. How many limited-edition decks (2500 of each color) do you usually find for sale a year later, especially when they were originally only being sold in color pairs?
If you check Wingra Direct now, you can find a pink Harley Davidson deck selling for $0.99/pack while some HD dealerships are still selling them at the original retail price. It's a butt-ugly deck and I'm guessing another flop, but at least that one was someone else's custom order, I presume.