In short, I'd have to say yes...
To LFL and Hasbro, there is no differentiation between the Prequals the the OT... To them, it's all one property.
I think of it as the way Hasbro treats collectors in general, and what we expect. To the majority, I'd have to think that the quality of the figure is what's important for the most part, and so Hasbro focuses on that. There are a minority who want this or that done with the packaging though so it displays better as a "collectible" maybe, but Hasbro generally doesn't focus their efforts there, and thus you get cards that will have bent corners easily or scuffed bubbles easily and whatnot.
Using that analogy... Sure there's OT and PT fans, and I'd say the majority of the die-hard collectors out there are mostly OT fans, but I'd also say that the fanbase that ONLY like the OT (No PT, no EU), are in the vast minority... There just arne't many "purists" compared to guys who accept and enjoy it all. And so Hasbro isn't going to give a minority anything "special" I suppose.
That'd be my guess... Same as they won't make packaging extra special/damage resistant for most of their stuff just to appease the minority (or what seem like a minority to me anyway) who like packaged toys instead of opening stuff.
That's what I figure they're thinking anyway... I could be wrong but their tendencies seem to indicate I'm in the ballpark.
