I suspect that nobody's really surprised that Circuit City has finally bitten the dust. The fading electronics chain had been in a death spiral for quite some time, and all the cost-cutting in the world couldn't save it in the end. While a dreadful economy contributed to its downfall, Circuit City's real problem was getting stuck with bad management that ultimately drove the company out of business.

Let's backtrack a bit. Back in March 2007, Circuit City fired more than 3,400 experienced sales people and other staffers simply because they were making too much money. Management then hired inexperienced, lower-paid workers to take their place. Bad move. Really bad move. This short-sighted decision may have looked good to then-CEO Philip Schoonover, who collected a cool multi-million bonus that year for his cost-cutting brilliance, but I'm convinced that it drove shoppers elsewhere. It certainly did in my case. (An aside: The Wall Street Journal named Schoonover the worst CEO of 2008 for his managerial bungling.)