I've never smelled sulfur with my bulk sausage. At my altitude (or your near-sea level one), I've also never seen puffy plastic wrappings, though I do think that some brands (Jimmy Dean) may be less tightly packed than others (Bob Evans, which may not be available out west). Faced with such an issue, twice, I would have taken the product back to the store -- they're usually pretty good about making that kind of thing right.

There's got to be some fun jokes about this.. hell references, jokes about not knowing how law, sausage, or Microsoft software gets made, etc... but the field's just a little too open. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader. ;-)

-Bill