$40 certainly sounds excessive for a shipping charge (I would even call it 'punitive').
I'm not defending Texas Aeroplastics here, but when I worked for one computer company I was surprised to find out how expensive shipping would cost. Above the actual cost of the shipping was the packaging - boxes cost 'x' number of dollars, the 2-part foam was really expensive, plus the wages of the guy to foam the parts (without ruining them) and box it up. I seem to recall it all added up to about $5 to $10 per item we shipped (back in the mid 1990's).
This was buying in bulk, getting discounted rates from UPS, and hiring at not much better than minimum wage. In the case of Texas Aeroplastics, it sounds like they're a distributor and not a manufacturer, so there's no charge for packaging - it's all labor and material handling... plus an 'annoyance fee'
