Yeah, the arm of Apple that sets up and runs their stores have gone from super-friendly and as flexible as possible to pretty much dickmunch-levels of unhelpfulness. Apparently the reasoning was that they were losing money on them, and hired a new overseer about 4 years ago to turn that around.
The Apple Stores around here try to make space for people between appointments whenever possible, though, so just how draconian they're being is entirely up to the training your hipster or barely-college Apple associate is. (Note: That was a stereotype. I know that was a stereotype. Many jokes require incorrect statements. Sheesh.)