Prices have been reasonable if you found everything at WM, which I did... And Target finally got their **** together and got competitive too. It's not SO bad, but the things like comic packs and whatnot are piling on.
I avoid Clone Wars, I don't buy much Legends stuff unless it's army building items like the SBD (very nice). I'm skipping the Previews TIE and whatnot, so certain things cut out will help ease the pain any given year and I'm sure '09 won't be any different. I'm waiting to get the Crimson Empire set (especially after seeing the **** legs) for a sale price which I'm sure we'll see (look at past multi-packs for a pretty constant trend).
Yeah, i'm not worried I guess. Not buying CW stuff (save for a figure here and there for either customizing, or because it blends in like IG-86 does) is basically the only reason I'm not crying when I take out my wallet.
Wish I could get into 12" SS figures, but alas the price keeps me away. I wanted to get into the militaries line really bad, but that price on the armored guys kills me. I may get the Fleet Trooper because I love me some Rebels, but it sucks to not be able to cave and buy the Imp Officers as they look bitchin'. Always love military stuff in SW and those are great, but just too pricey for me. Hasbro has taken over.
Part of me almost hopes Hasbro is sparing with the big ticket items in the future. I like the AT-TE, but honestly unless it's scale or so close it's negligible, I don't want it. So from my perspective things that are just too big to be done to-scale are a waste of money that I'd like to see reinvested into cooler stuff. Cooler stuff like say the upcoming Droid Fighter, or a future Snail Tank Droid which is long overdue IMO and totally doable to-scale.
And I'd like to see some things that are not SO huge like the Juggernaught... If they're gonna make something big, I'd rather see a Y-Wing that they crank out for $50 and is to-scale, ya know? Rather than Juggernaught that isn't gonna come in anywhere correctly in size (or an AT-AT, or Sandcrawler, etc.). I'd love a scale X-Wing to go with the new TIE Fighter ya know? The FX sculpt is like 80%, so it's off by a bit... The Y-Wing's dismally small... Same for the B-Wing. Those are much more important/iconic to me, so I could do without the $100-$150 pipedream ships that just never will be full sized.
Anyway that's me... I'm not looking at '09 much different than '08. It's a lot easier though when you skip numerous items like the entire CW animated line. That helped a ton.