How rare is this disc? Is it the kind of thing I could reasonably expect to find on a store shelf, or is it really out of circulation?

Is this one of the ones that went OOP? If so it will be a hard one to find in any store. They will be releasing it again eventually anyway and you may be better off waiting.

Because of a license expiration (and NOT Sam Neill's "unauthorized" screen test, as many internet gossippers have said), MGM wasn't allowed to release it (a temporary agreement was reached with DanJaq to release it in Box Sets). Don't worry - TLD will be rereleased.

James Bond Will Return.

I believe it is going to be in the upcoming box set that is supposed to be released in early June.

Probably, I hope when they re-release these films again in the future they offer region 1 a complete box set of some kind.

I'm still hoping that future releases will have commentary tracks with the actors!

Did The Living Daylights have problems like Licence to Kill and other Bond DVDs did?

My copy of the living daylights is flawless AFAIK.

The problem with the LD disc from '99 or 2000 was that it omitted some subtitles (when the Chech woman distracts the guard monitoring the pipeline) and misframed a scene (when Pushkin's mistress is seen nude).

Corrected copies were supposedly available from MGM.

Were they released to stores with the ****'s on the top label like the others?

tks

I had to think twice which bad word you typed! Yes, I believe there were a series of asterisk's (*****) on all replaced Bond DVDs.