I finally caved and ordered a pair of them from Target.com. My fear is that they are slowly dwindling out of the regional distribution hub warehouses and when the time comes for them to make their way to the stores, there probably won't be any more than one or two cases per location.

Now I'm keeping my fingers cross that at least ONE of them arrives in MIB shape. 

Ok - got my set today.

Anyone find a great substitute for the dark-light-whip?

Wait a second... there's a clear R2-D2?   

Yep - it was the Celebration Japan exclusive from Tomy, they sold them at SWS.com for a short period after that convention was held.

Here's the photo-gallery for it on RebelScum: http://www.rebelscum.com/TACCJclearR2D2.asp

edit: You can actually still buy it from SWS.com - http://shop.starwars.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=1223962;category_id=322

I only got one for my collection, now that it's been reduced to $17.99, I might have to pick another one up to open... 

On Friday I scored a set of the new general release EU Comic 2-packs (Luke/Deena, Wedge/Bothan, Mundi/Hett).

For me the best of the bunch is the Dooku with Speeder Bike - I hope they throw some more articulation into the figure that comes with this set - knee joints would be nice.

Picked up a second Wave 5 Luke and Han so I could complete a second R5 B-A-D.

Well - speaking as someone who bought each of the Tomy imports from StarWarsShop.com - I'm still kinda glad that I did.

Looks like the base/stand that shipped with the Japanese versions has been dropped from the packaging.

While a base/stand doesn't seem like much of a big deal, the great thing about it in this case is that it has a spot to hold the lightsaber handle remote. This way, if you display your open stuff, the remote rests neatly next to your remote control droid.

I guess this is one of the ways they're keeping the price on these down.

Still think I'm going to pass and add these to the list of stuff "I've already got and don't need the packaging variants" that I am passing on now due to space considerations

I've seen in a lot of threads that folks are hoping that some of the build-a-droids end up in the Saga Legends line so they have a second shot at picking them up.

What I'm hoping Hasbro is going to do is take advantage of the fact that parts can by mixed and matched and offer up Build-a-Droid gift packs. I would love to have us ask them this question in an upcoming Q&A:

"Would you ever consider releasing Build-a-Droid gift packs that use the same molds you've recently developed for the carded releases but with different paint ops? So for example, an Astromech build-a-droid gift pack that features the parts for an R2, an R4, an R5 and an R7. Or a Protocol Droid build-a-droid gift pack that features a C-3PO type protocol droid, a RA-7 protocol droid and perhaps a repaint of HK-47 as an HK-50 (since one pretended to be a protocol droid in KOTR2)"

I think this would be a great way to get out the build-a-droid parts to folks who may have passed on one or more of the droid types previously issued, but by making them repaints, you still maintain the exclusivity of the droids that were released one-piece at a time with the basic figure line.

On the back of the packaging they could even hype the fact that droid parts are inter-changeable and show examples of mixing and matching the droid parts contained in each set.

What do you all think of that idea?