Duty free?

Duty free is also available on arrival in BKK, and Mascot in Sydney (Aust not Can)and from memory in Aukland NZ, we always buy our take home supplies after landing back at Mascot, too lazy to carry it any further and usually what we buy is cheaper back here. However your problem may well be carriage of duty free on board unless it is purchased after security at the actual departure aiport, ie duty free liquids purchased elsewhere cannot be carried through as a transit passenger, if you can put it in your checked luggage then ok. That is my understanding for a number of airports/countries including Thailand, not sure about Malaysia.

yup... its true... i bought a bottle in duty free in Dakar, and had a change of planes in Madrid. I had to go through customs again, and i wasn't allowed to take the bottle as carry on... I was told there was some certificate i should have, but no one told me. They told me to put my lovely bottle of single malt scotch in my small backpack and put it through checked luggage.... finally decided, what the hell... i wasnt going to leave to them, and the worst that could happen was a scotch smelly backpack. fortunately the bottle was in a sturdy appearing cardboard cylindrical contained. Believe it or not, it arrived safely in Toronto. But there was the dilemma! it could go no further, and i couldnt get it home unless i checked it again when i returned west. So in the end, we cracked it open, and my friend and i enjoyed it...

Maybe it has something to do with the amount of time you have.
Normally you'd go past security to air side in the airport, then twiddle your thumbs for an hour or so. It's an ideal time to do a bit of shopping thinks the airport management.
But when you arrive all you usually want to do is rush off home/on holiday/to the meeting. Hence unless you are determined you will buy something anyway you wouldn't normally take time to browse through the duty free shop and all those interesting travel gadgets that boil a cup of coffee whilst cutting your toenails, curling your hair and locking up your backpack.
What do you think?

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<hr>It appears that I've got to buy this in Vancouver, trail it through Malaysian airports and eventually land with it in Surabaya.<hr></blockquote>

I don't think the above is even possible any more. Your duty free will more than likely be confiscated - dumped down the drain - when you try to board your flight out of Malaysia. There are serious new liquid rules on flights and the big rule is - you can carry duty free on direct flights only NOT ON A CONNECTION OR TRANSIT FLIGHT.
Here's the KL airport page detailing this rule.

KL airport

liquids ........purchased from Airport Shops/Duty Free in the security restricted areas of the terminal on the day of travel. Items must be placed in standard Security Tamper-Evident Bags (STEBs) with receipt attached to it as Proof of Purchase.

OnlyMark has hit the major nail on the head. They would sell less if you bought it on arrival. Most people are in a hurry to get out of the airport on arrival and would not take the time to browse through the duty free before exiting. So that idea would be bad for business.

As for why can you have that in the overhead locker but not a pair of nail scissors, that has nothing to do with security and everything to do with the PERCEPTION of security. The reality is that if someone wants to get something onto a plane that could be used as a weapon, they can easily do so. A cheap plastic pen can be used to stab someone in the jugular vein, so why don't they ban all pens from airplanes? Answer, because no one PERCEIVES a pen as a threat. The edge of a credit card can be sharpened and will slit someone's throat quite handily. Ban all credit cards? People want to believe they are safe when they get on a plane and all the security measures give them that feeling of comfort. How effective they are against a determined attacker is another story.

To ban duty free liquor would seem to be an obvious security precaution since the bottle can be a weapon as you suggest Aphrodite1. You don't even have to break the bottle, just smash someone on the head with it and it's likely to be fatal. But isn't it amazing that the same people who want to feel secure, are able to ignore the fact that the bottle they buy is a lethal weapon and half the people on the plane have one!

You can buy on arrival in Australia and NZ and I believe that in both countries if you buy after security you can carry on your normal allowance

Duty free is available - on arrival - at Auckland in NZ (possibly Christchurch and Wellington too, but I've not entered through them); and at all capital city airports in Australia (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne etc).

I also encontered the dilemma of having duty free on my person when we were changing flights. I bought a bottle of Glenlivet single malt in Lima airport, bound for Toronto via Miami. The obvious never occured to me until I tried to take my small backpack with said bottle of Glenlivet as carry-on luggage for the flight from Miami to Toronto. Customs (of course) told me this was not acceptable carry-on luggage and I would have to check this bag. We had about an hour to make the flight and the queue to check the bag was enormous. We were exhausted and fed up and decided not to risk missing the filght by waiting in the long queue. I was resigned to giving up the duty free. I offered it to a customs agent who reluctantly declined. My attitude at this point was I'd rather have someone else enjoy it than have it poured down the drain. I briefly considered leaving it in the concourse for someone to claim, but then realized that is a really bad idea. I could just imagine a 'strange package left in the concourse' being reported to security, then evacuation, bomb squad, swat teams, blah blah, all for a bottle of whiskey! So I left the bottle with customs and we were sent through. What's the first thing we encounter? A duty free shop of course! Mrs. PerArdua goes in to buy a bottle of vodka, but I'm in a big snit by this time and refuse to get another bottle of single malt. My lesson was learned the hard way.....

Iceland has a duty-free shop on the way in, which i use as the bottles only have to be carried to the carpark. I have trouble understanding people that lug duty free booze over long distances i gladly pay the difference just so i don´t have to carry things, eg. buy clothes and toiletries during my trip (often cheaper than home). I rent towels at swimming pools so i don´t have to carry them, so lugging 2-3 kg of booze to save even 50% is madness.