Nick - I think we can both agree that what Hasbro has done is a calculated risk.
I tend to look at it pessimistically while you choose the more optimistic view.
Optimistically, sure, there is definitely a chance that they may have piqued the interest of more folks than the number of collectors who have now soured on the line. Back in 2005, I would have told you that was impossible and that surely the number of folks who had soured would far out-pace the number of folks who were not Star Wars collectors and interested in buying a $130 exclusive. But in 2011, you may indeed be correct. For every collector they pissed off, there is someone who may have grabbed the set who might think about getting into the Vintage Collection, which is something that really isn't hard to do at this point, since we're only talking about 50 additional figures beyond what's in the set they just bought.
Like Jman pointed out, the SW collector who buys 2 of everything, one to keep MIB/MOC and one to open is a dying breed, and as I myself sit in my home office looking at SEVEN display cabinets crammed full of opened figures, vehicles, playsets, etc... from the 3.75" SW line, I have to wonder, when will enough be enough and when will I finally succumb to the extinction of my collecting species?
The pessimist in me says that sure there may have been a one-for-one trade off between someone new and a pissed off collector, but the "someone new" is not someone who is going to jump into collecting the line. They are the "Hot Wheels guy", eBay scalper or employee of Brians Toys who is going to turn around and sell the set for $260+ because gosh darnit - they DESERVE to make 100% profit overnight on this item. And since I believe (and from the number of eBay auctions can see) that to be the case, I have to wonder, what satisfaction/sense of accomplishment Darry DePriest gets from this situation. He got eBay scalpers excited about this one-time item and now it's going for double the price on eBay - big deal! It's not like Hasbro gets a cut of that. The only thing he accomplished is that for a week or two following the show, HTS didn't have to deal with having them in stock. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. If you doubled or even tripled the quantity that HTS had to sell yesterday, I can guarantee that it would still have been sold out before the end of the week. And let's say instead of 1000 sets, it was 3000 sets, 2000 more sets that sell means $260,000 more in sales. To me, to walk away from a sales opportunity like that is just insanity.
