Yesterday I was checking out Target's massive restock of the AT-RT Driver wave (is it August?) when a woman sidled up to me and asked if I had seen a Plo Koon figure hanging around since she was buying her son the JSF and wanted the figure to go in it. Since I had found the figure late last week to put in my own JSF, I knew there were a few more around, so I attempted to find another one (sadly, they were all gone).
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is for background. We were talking about her son's toys and who he was looking for (she said he had yet to see ROTS due to the rating but that he had several of the toys) and I asked her if she had heard about the Bail/Leia and Ben/Luke two packs yet. She was very excited about them and when I told her that the Bail was the same one already released, she said, "I hope they make it out of a better quality this time."
Apparently, their son really wanted Leia's step-dad back in May and saved his allowance to buy him on a trip to Target. She said he was really sad when he opened the figure and Bail's arm kept falling off. She said they ended up returning it the next day, and her son has been hoping another Bail would be made so he could get a "good one." I told her that had been a big problem lately with a lot of the figures (the Plo Koon I bought a few days earlier's forearms are pathetic) and she said that for what they are charging, they should be of a higher quality than what they are. Overall, it was a great opportunity for me to see something from both a parent's and a child's perspective, as opposed to my usual cynical adult perspective as a collector.
All I have to say about the articulation costing Hasbro more money is this: I grew up collecting the 3.75" Joes, and they were articulated as well as the current crop of SW figures, and I NEVER had a problem with an arm falling out of a socket. Hasbro is being cheap, pure and simple.