I visited GE's web site today and noticed that the F96PG17/CW is listed again. That makes me happy. No daylight or watt miser version appeared but the standard CW is back.

No way. It's gotta be too good to be true!

BulbAmerica and Atlanta Light Bulbs have them, though they're charging an arm and a leg.

But the question is, is GE actually producing them again, or did they just put it up on the web site for information purposes, and the sites you linked are just selling remaining stock?

Odd how both GE and the retailers say "reduced wattage", yet they also say they're 215W.

Well, I was under the impression that they weren't available anywhere, and I just turned up 2 dealers with a simple Google search.

The last time I was on their site grooved lamps were not available as a selection. All were listed as this product is no longer manufactured. Today standard CW was listed as active.

I hope so, but so far I have been unable to find any by the case.
May be there was such a demand that they went back in production.
There has got to be a lot of fixtures still out there that need them.
If you have a factory or warehouse with thousands of PG fixtures that need bulbs, replacing all the fixtures could be cost prohibitive.
A few cases of bulbs a year is a lot cheaper.
Not everyone is going "green".

I did buy a case of NOS F96PG17WMs off of ebay early this year, but have not found any for sale since.
Many sites still list them for sale, but have none in stock and are too lazy to remove the listing from their site.

Some sites will even let you order them and confirm the order and shipping only to have it canceled as it has not been stocked for a long time and just too lazy to remove the listing.
You think it is on the way, but it was never in stock in the first place.

Maybe the people who have PG fixtures aren't aware they can just use T12 VHO lamps instead. It'd be nice if it would stay that way to keep up demand for PGs.

It's getting scarce to even find VHO lamps anymore

They're still made, and sell for much less than PGs.

I went into my local Graybar electric today (they sell just about every GE lamp or ballast), and asked for these lamps (just to see what they would say) to my surprise they said "yes we can get them for you but they have to come factory direct so you're looking at 3 weeks" I asked for pricing and they quoted me $469 per case.

How many in a case?

I didnt ask but I would assume 12 ($39 per lamp), maybe 18 tops. The new GE Lighting 2014 product ordering catalog the clerk was using listed the F96PG17/CW, it said "active" next to it in the description and even had an order code, so it must be back in production.

How many in a case?

Eight per case for the F96PGs.
Twelve per case for the 4 foot PGs.

That price may be retail.
I would think there is a better price out there online if they really are back in production.
The shipping on these 8 foot bulbs can be expensive.

Ide like to get my hands on one of those GE lamp/ballast ordering catalogs that are given to the wholesalers/distributors, they are about as thick as a phone book and are completely different to the thin ones available to the public/end consumers