I thought Padawan, M.D. made a good point about how the repacks of then screwed us on new figures too... You wanna see some PO'd people? See anyone who never got an EU figure or RY/DST because of the repacks.
Now, the Fan Club offered them in abundance, but at a higher price... At the time that was fine to me, but looking back I see how people got hosed on that who couldn't afford it.
I know now if they were offering umpteen figures through the Fan Club at high prices just because of repacks, I'd be much more vocal about a distaste for these things now.
The entire EU line didn't surface around the Pittsburgh area. I know I at least never saw a single one from that line ever at retail. I heard some did, but not myself and I was doing more routine toy runs then, than I am now.
I also did not spot RY/DST... Not to mention a LOT of the "new" FF figures got screwed... Figures a lot of people were looking forward to for the first time, like Ishi Tibb, Piett, etc... These figures I actually found lying in a TRU bin on clearance because TRU had gotten them but repack after repack after repack clogged the shelves.
I can say "good fortune to me" now that I got those for less than retail, but that was a 100% stroke of good luck that I even found them because I showed up at a TRU right after it oopened one morning. As it was, while I was digging out what I could, someone swarmed in and started shoving his fat, comic-book-guy-like body in my space trying to force me away from the bin.
Pathetic... I'd gotten what I wanted though, even the hottest figure of its time, the Rem. Helmet Vader, and I'd gotten some for friends in the area too...
That's a 100% fluke though... Had I been 5 minutes later, and I wouldn't have found that wave at retail either because that was the only time I ever saw them.
Another doozy in that wave, and still one a lot seem not to have is Zuckuss... *sigh*
Yeah, Repacks were equally annoying then, if not vastly more so.