I agree wholeheartedly on the packaging issue. In a POP situation I can see the need for something more ornate, but in something that's A) being ordered online in the first place and B) that (theoretically) is targeting army builders (or more to the point, "openers"), then the whole packaging issue truly stunk to the heavens. That stuff wasn't cheap to produce from what I've heard, from a packaging cost perspective, and wasn't important to the final product.
I think the %'s paid to LFL via Hasbro are exagerrated at times though... They make a killing, no doubt, but they also spread it out over quite a duration, not to mention that production on Star Wars, which generally has matched retail demand for it, has been incredibly high. It may not show in secondary numbers but what retailers want seems quite a bit. Hasbro's done well with the line.
I like that we're seeing articulation increase though, and pretty intelligently across the board. The army builders and "action" characters of the ROTS line got more attention than a Senator-esque figure... It's as it should be, and should have been for the past 10 years... The idea sticks on these Clones though, that this is a screwjob towards us that, for my $.02 worth, Hasbro could've done better (not just by us, but by their own bottom line) by selling more product at a lower price than selling less at a higher price...
Honestly though, the better option to me is that they should have made a case of white. I think that would've made many people happy in the long-run and been the amicable solution... A case of whites would've garnered my $300+ for just myself, and I'd have a sizeable army at a modest price then. Hell I'd have still gone in on a case of the officers/whites with my local collecting buddies too, just to flesh out the officers some more. I think they'd have done better at that rate.
I wonder what the sales #'s on Clones for ROTS is though, and I'd love to see what kind of profit %'s that just THOSE figures generated in comparison to others. It'd be interesting figures to see, not that we would ever get to.