it seems to me that a lot of radio labs 909's get resold shortly after
being bought. are they really that bad ?

I have one modded, it's just ok IMO. I had my dx394 modded out and it
absolutely runs circles around the 398/909.

It sounds better. I listen to the BCB in stereo mode which I never did before.
The RCA jack on the back IMO is useless, the pitch HE (ahem) gave me said it
would increase the sensitivity yada yada. It didn't, that is the bottom line. I
went back to the original ext. antenna jack. Of course the FM is good, if you
listen to FM.

The correct 394 mods (not the all of them, some are useless IMO) makes the
398/909 look like a toy.