I think this will look really cool. And I won't mind army building with these either. My Imperial display doesn't have just one kind of trooper, there's stormies, scouties, and snowies. There's no reason why I wouldn't want some variety in the Republic display also.
As far as the Stormies=clones thing is concerned, there was a show that aired before AOTC, where Lucas was talking about the movie. One of the things he said was that he had to think of a way to explain where the stormtroopers came from, so he decided to make the Clone army. It may have been on E, but I can't remember. My friend has it on tape, so I'll take a look and see if I can determine the exact program. However, it was Lucas who said it.
My take on the whole debate is that the Clones were not only valuable because it gave the Republic an army, but because the Cloning technology allowed the Empire to expand its forces exponentially.
Think about it...if a genetic sample was taken of every recruit, then you could make thousands of copies of each trooper. Rather than one genetic source (Jango), you'd have hundreds of thousands. With a combination of cloning and recruiting, you would be able to create a vast military force.
