Excellent points, Gordon Gekko and DFC!
One aspect that bothers me is that most of these military figures do not have the added overhead of expensive licensing and yet I'm seeing, for example, DAMTOY's latest pre-orders with price points of $260+. Either these manufacturers are testing to see what the market can bear or at worst, are simply getting greedy. I do understand that the numbers being made for each military figure is most likely significantly lower and thus the costs are reflecting that aspect as well, but much of the uniforms, gear and accessories have been utilized on previous releases and thus the costs are spread out among additional figures. I recently joined the "Armed Figures forum" and have noticed quite a number of posts stating that they would be passing on a boxed figure and simply picking up some loose items. If this continues, it will affect these manufacturers, to their detriment. (Dragon/DML and Blue Box are perfect examples.)
I honestly thought that I would be able to continue with these military figure lines based on the lower price points compared to Hot Toys, for example. But while I just got back into the genre, I'm already feeling that I'm being priced out, once again...
The 1/6th scale figure hobby in general is quickly forcing me to be even more selective than what I already was and in many cases, simply skipping some releases that I don't see the price-to-value in them. One perfect example is the recent $1000 for a pair of (admittedly outstanding) TDK Jokers. As great as they may eventually be, I just can't justify spending that much. Just imagine when there are a must-have pair or group of characters and they are roughly $500.00 each. For example, Han & Chewie or Neo, Morpheus and Trinity. If this is the future of the hobby, I'm definitely out, for the most part.
