I agree, it's irritating. A removable limbs figure would've been neat... It IS possible to do articulation on these style figures though. I at least would've enjoyed knees. And with howo the knee is designed on the costume, it would've been possible with some ingenuity to do it hidden underneath the can-shaped knee.
The R2 and 3PO both are less "amazing" than the other figures in the line. Even Old Ben who, I thought, was the suckiest.
Again, I feel it's packaging that's costing, not the figures, but still these figures aren't anything impressive beyond 3PO's nice sculpt. R2's not even really that impressive as far as sculpt goes though either. Tough to improve on what they've done with astromechs as it stands.