I hope it's baby Leos that they're feeding that tiny amount to.
I recently got an adult female leopard gecko that her previous owners were feeding 10 crickets a week, if that. She was 7 inches long at least, and only weighed 39 grams. Pretty underweight I think, she wasn't emaciated, but she certainly was near borderline.
I feed her what she'll eat every other day, which is what you're currently doing, and I think it's a better feeding schedule. You're buying the same amount of crickets anyway, and it's doubtful your gecko'd be able to mow down 12 at a time. He'd eat his fill, and then you'd have the rest of the little buggers running around his cage, eating his poo and replacing nutritious gutload with crap, trying to get out, and possibly breeding in his substrate. Plus, if you only tried to feed him one day a week, he'd be working off too much energy and practically starving for the rest of the week, hunting for food he wouldn't be getting, before his next feeding. They aren't like snakes, they've got a high metabolism in comparison and it's better to keep them on an every-other-day schedule.
Just keep to what you're doing, that way you can also ensure that they're properly gut-loaded as well when you feed them on your own and give them to your gecko.
As far as the petstores go, they're likely to feed their critters the bare minimum, just to save themselves money. They're kind of known to underfeed a lot of their animals to keep them in the 'small and cute' stage, as well as the fact that everything the animal eats, chews down the stock of feeder insects they have available to customers. What works for them, isn't always the best way.