99 lumina 3.8 sedan exhaust down pipe section

hello everyone,
I'm new to this forum and I seem to have a problem that nobody has mentioned yet. I've found that unless you want an aftermarket universal cat., you must go to a dealer parts provider for the entire downpipe Icluding from front: flange,flex, down pipe bend, converter, oxygen sensor socket, resonator and flex at rear. This thing cost $669 at my dealer. You can't buy any of these parts individually and they're N/A at any other parts provider because they've held on to the patent.
I've damaged my flex pipe in addition to already needing a catalytic converter. The flex pipe is very short and very wide and nothing universal matches up very well. I've had no luck finding any of these components at junk yards in my region (with an exact match) and of course they wouldn't sell me a converter anyway. Since I have a friend who's a mechanic at a brake/muffler shop... his boss finally offered to special order the assembly for me at $300 plus s&h. The only problem is that I have to wait about 4-5 days for arrival. I've basically got everything under control. I'm just wondering has anyone else been through this before?

A good exhaust shop should be able to bend a pipe to match, and weld on any flanges or flex sections it needs. I use custom muffler here in St Louis. A guy there they call Doc can make anything. Usually dirt cheap, too.