I did see Halo Wars is $52.99 on buy.com. That is more of a deal than the LE. And I saw it thanks to Rev's post.
so I broke down and bought Halo Wars LE, mostly for the maps since I thought the game was pretty average. So far I've only been playing the Mythic maps, and they are pretty good. Sandbox is one of the most amazing maps ever (maybe just cause it's new), there are so many different things you can do with it. I've already played 3 versions just in matchmaking. Assembly is enough like Midship that you won't get lost if you've played it before, and Orbital I get lost just walking out of the base.