All's well that ends well! A friend on another board pointed me to a Groupon deal today for the Skylander's Swap Force Wii U bundle, $215. It even comes w/ a $25 Groupon credit, so I can probably grab a game with that at some point. And I have no interest in Skylander's either, so I'll either sell or trade it for something else. I'm happier w/ an actual new system anyway, so yay!
Oh, bonus! I remembered this afternoon that when I was last at Toys R Us they had some of their Wii U accessories on sale so I swung by there after work - got a battery pack to extend the charge length of the controller, a cradle to recharge it in & a Turtle Beach headset made for the system all for $25!