Naw, I wasn't either. I know that the grandma I was closest to didn't sew a lot, but my mom did / does? sew, and I always just knew which was was the front of the machine. I do sort of think you'd have to live in a bit of a hole to have -never- seen a sewing machine in use, even on TV?
The problem too though is a lot of people do their "research" on ebay, so the prices are out to lunch as a result. Ebay isn't the place to research prices anymore unless you use the finished auctions, but for a lot of people, that's just too much work.
That said, I'm seeing the prices going up on sewing machines for some reason. The same machines I was seeing in the spring and summer at $125ish are in the $200 range now... I'm not sure what that's about, that sort of increase doesn't make a lot of sense to me.