Steve,

I've been similarly annoyed that the only 'off the shelf' serial LCDs seem to come from folks like Matrix Orbital and Crystalfontz.

These units tend to cost a small fortune, when compared to the cost of a standard bare LCD unit & a homemade serial to parallel driver board.

The best I've seen (here in the UK) is one, with a serial i/f daughterboard, from Crownhill at GBP17.

Derek.