Agreed. I would doubt the cheap ones are genuine. At best, they may be old stock, used and salvaged ICs, etc.
Note that at Digikey, the IC is only available as an SMD one. We don't know what the OP was looking for exactly.
The solution would depend on the project. For any kind of new project, I would definitely go for an MCU-based solution. Cheap, much more flexible, can be integrated with many other features in one MCU, no availability problem, lower power consumption, the list goes on... And if said project already includes an MCU, this would even be a no-brainer.
If it's to maintain a legacy design, then it's not the same problem. Doing what T3sl4co1l suggested may be a relatively simple option.