The issue is that a lot of technically-minded foreigners go to Akihabara without realizing that for a lot of Japanese people, the place is just as much about otaku stuff (manga, anime, cosplay) as it is about electronics. And then they get disappointed when they realize that otaku stuff is what makes up most of Akiba.
Absolutely. When my friends from the US come to visit me in Tokyo they almost always want to visit Akiba. I tell them, "You wont find cheap gadgets (the exchange rate is against you) and you wont want to buy anything that requires software (because it won't be localized to english and will be too hard to use) but you should still go because it's a mind-blowingly weird place." Most people go there and buy a wierd iPhone case, USB gadget or something retro and cool. I try to get everyone to visit the AKB48 theatre or an photo/video game arcade or something non-tech too so they get that half of it.
Akihabara is now the mecca of a small sub-culture of Japan. Most people here never go there but its influence is felt. I think most people here view it like Hot Topic at your local mall although maybe slightly more legit than that because it has roots in a very old tradition of hardware engineering.
Another thing that skews the perspective of foreigners is that since the main streets of Akiba have been "cleaned up", many of the small-time hardware vendors have moved onto the backstreets.
Most foreigners don't know Akiba's backstreets (just visiting Japan), don't know anyone who knows the backstreets who can guide them (again, just visiting Japan), can't ask for directions (don't know Japanese), and can't look up stuff on their phone (expensive roaming data plans).
I did some research before going, and was able to find Super Potato[0], which sells used video games. Since it has a site, it's obviously not that "small-time", but locating the physical location was a pain in the ass. And this is despite knowing Japanese and having a printed out map on hand.
I replied this somewhere else but just a note that I was staying about 5 minutes away from Shinjuku station so I did stumble along into Akiba backstreets when I was there. Also, when I was in Osaka, I visited DenDen City! All of these places are probably the closest thing to what I imagined when I was young but my point remains that I expected loads of unique Japanese branded electronics but was surprised (and underwhelmed) to see the same Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese branded stuff I see anywhere else around the world.
p/s: I'm probably not your typical "foreigner" since my heritage is Asian, I speak passable Japanese and I had one of those pocket mobile wifi thingamajig (GlobalAdvanceComm) so that I could use Google Maps to find my way around.
