I don't expect them to be experts in animal care. I absolutely understand that the housing in the stores is NOT supposed to be permanent, and I don't have problems with say... a leopard gecko being in an overcrowded situation for a month or two. I'm only talking about the blatant problems I've seen; like, the ones that have the potential to be fatal really quickly. Like housing a pacman frog with another frog, putting animals on dangerous substrate (again, usually with frogs), and feeding unsuitable prey. All things that you can find on a simple caresheet or google search, and all able to cause death or permanent disability in a very short time. If you're telling me that it's not the job of a pet retailer to spend less than five minutes to print out a care sheet for the animals they carry and then follow it, then I'd say they have no business being a pet retailer.

They hire specific employees to care for the reptile section as well as the fish section. I wouldn't expect these people to be experts in caring for these animals, but I DO expect them to know the basics. If you're going to be caring for an animal for ANY length of time, you need to know enough about it to keep it alive.
I honestly don't feel like requiring the corporation to put out caresheets for the animals they carry to all the stores would be asking too much. It would take almost no time, since they don't really carry unusual animals, the basic info is readily available, and the supplies to do it properly are generally in the store.

I don't 'bash' Petco and Petsmart. I realize that they are businesses and that much of the care for the reptiles is passable for short-term housing. For example; I'm understanding of overcrowding, but less so of being put on a dangerous substrate when thirty seconds of research could tell you the correct one, and there is a bag of it on the shelf beside the animal. I'm sure they've improved a lot, but I don't feel like that's a reason to pretend like fatal care errors that could be fixed VERY easily are okay and shouldn't be criticized. I mean, I hardly freak out and boycott them every time I see something I don't like; I'm in there at least once a week.

I also still say they should stick to 'beginner' snakes and lizards as far as reptiles. For several reasons. They advertise several species of frog as 'beginner' animals. I would say that they are beginner frogs, but no frog is a good beginner animal when it comes to working with exotics. Also, animals that get very large as adults and need complex care to avoid permanent problems (like tortoises, monitors, and iguanas) should probably not be sold there. No one with enough experience to care for these animals and make that long of a commitment is going to be buying them from a chain store, and most of the really egregious care issues in-store that I've seen are for species like that.
I realize that's not going to change, because there are plenty of idiots who will go in and buy a sickly baby iguana from people who made it ill because they know about as much about it as the people buying it. Doesn't mean I'm going to boycott Petsmart, but it also doesn't mean I'm going to pretend like that's okay because they don't mistreat geckos and beardies as bad as they used to.

If you go through my collection, you could find things to nitpick, but you won't find my cannibalistic frog housed with a buddy, and you won't find my garters getting skinny while crickets are hopping around their tanks.