You ever buy a pair of Nike shoes? Sony TV? Same crap with top names - half the time you're paying for the name brand (I'm sorry, $80 for a pair of Nike's is a joke).
I love LF and their products for life, but $350 for their wakeskate is a little hard to swallow for me (nine ply can't be worth that much; top deck, might be worth it, but still that's a grip of cash - especially when you compare that price to an Integrity deck, which is bomb proof).
Integrity's are pretty hard to find at the moment, Schmaltz runs the operation and he's the man! He would rather put out a quality product over quantity, so you might be out of luck for awhile to get an integ.
But if you're looking to stay on the cheap on the long run you'll learn quick that you get what you pay for. However, if you want to get into skating for a discount, checkout the closeouts on boardersmall.com, I threw this one out to a different person on awhile back:
http://boardersmall.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18837&cat=342&page=1 The board isn't the greatest, but will work just fine for you over the next year or two. But don't expect any board to have an 'easy button' on it, so just stick with last years stuff for now to save some coin; and once you step your game up then take the plunge and get a more expensive deck that you know will work for you in terms of length/concave/rocker/weight/grip/etc.