One thing to note, Salsa and Surly are both owned by the same parent company: Q.B.P. (Quality Bike Products). Since all their stuff is in the same catalogue, it may have just been an honeset mistake - Salsa does make track chainrings afterall. It may also have been an honest brainfart on the part of the owner that you'd need a compatible lockring. Check the businesscycles.com reference page to get an idea (if you don't already know) about how tricky that can be. Surly cogs USED to be a bit narrower, and maybe the Dura-Ace lockring is known to be a bit wider. This is all speculation, but I work at a shop and know sometimes honest mistakes can end up looking shady to customers. That being said, he should jump over himself to make sure he's still serving you well and to clear up the confusion. Hopefully it gets worked out, losing faith in your lbs sucks (it happened to me and now I don't bother with 2 of the three shops that are less than two blocks away from where I live).

If you still get treated poorly, here are two good online shops that might deserve your business more:
- www.businesscycles.com
- www.spicercycles.com

[Not affiliated, but great experience w/ them in the past ... ie. in-depth responses to questions from the owners themselves and fast service ... also reasonable prices and access to esoteric parts.]

Edit: Add Ben's Cycles to the above list ... and compare their actual website to their eBay listings. I've noticed some price differences between the two in the past.