I was just thinking that because, well, there dog alien is obviously using a full rubber suit to hide joints, which on the alien figures, aren't really that bad and are well hidden. it looks to me like they are probably making a push to rubber suited cover figures. they did it with the appleseed figures, which I have one of and it looks and works great for me. they are doing it with their human figures and it now looks like they are doing it with the alien figures. it just seems to me at some point they are going to make the jump with the preds i think, but either way this is just speculation on my part, I don't really care either way.
And I know what you mean with the loss of interest, once those guys come out, it might decline their future sales, but I highly doubt that, because so many people have turned into completest that any predator figures that get released with sell out, the only one I see them having trouble with is the wolf cleaner kit, which is still pretty widely available, but I just think that's because there's not much difference in the two wolf figures, just a few accessories, nothing drastic like the BD pred 2. even the first release of the wolf predator is available at one online shop I know of.