I bought a cheap charger intended for Motorola phones today ... and it does not work with the N900. I realize that I could modify it, but I'd rather have something that I don't have to cut&splice. Has anyone had success with a charger that would be stocked at the local Target or Best Buy?

I found one by just Googling N900 and charger. It came from Hong Kong and cost me about $5. It works like a champ. But it wouldn't be stocked at a local store. It took less than a month for me to get it -- I wasn't paying attention; it just suddenly came one day. I also bought a couple of cheap batteries that seem to work fine and seemed to be professionally packaged, with the Nokia hologram and everything. For all I know, they came from a factory manufacturing Nokia batteries -- I can't tell the difference, but I don't care that much. I just deduce from the low price that they can't be authentic.

I use my girlfriend's Samsung charger as often as the Nokia one (just pick up whichever one I see first) and its worked every time.

The adaptor thingy that Nokia supply died on me while I was on the road, 2000 miles from home. I bought a 'universal' charger kit branded 'Covertec' that does continental mains, ciggy socket and USB to Nokia, Moto, Samsung, LG and Ericsson with a range of replaceable tips.
The plug labelled Nokia 8600 works a treat.

At the same time, bought a 'Hama' Nokia car charger which also works fine.

My stock Motorola Q micro USB charger works fine (850mA). I started using it on my replacement 900, after the USB port ripped out of my original.