I suppose I come from the business owners side vs the customer side, but I think both sides need to be heard. I have no first hand knowledge of the specifics of this event, but have a bit of insight into running a business.
With the depressed state of the economy, and increasing pressure from competition, many companies have had to reduce staff. In addition, their margins have been almost cut in half from a few years ago. With this in mind many business have half as many people trying to sell the same volume of work for half as much profit. In effect the people who are left are being asked to work twice as hard / efficient as before and not seeing any benefit other than job retention.
I do not offer this as a reason anyone should be treated poorly, or as any sort of excuse, but rather that by your own admission you were simply kicking tires and had no intention of buying on the given day or for perhaps months into the future. Also perhaps there were customers who needed attention, or service work that needed to be done at the time.
Many businesses are faced with tough choices each day about how to allocate their resources. I am simply saying there are always two sides to any story, and we need to be open to both. Often I find the truth lies in the middle.