I have to admit, I'm one of the suckers that's kept buying as the prices have continued to go up. Things are starting to get a little too expensive to do that at this point though, with price increases in Star Wars, Indy, Joe, and about everything else I'm interested in. I'd be curious to see how many people would cut back or drop out if we start seeing $9 basic figures. Heck, it sounds like we'll be at $8 the way it is, so its not far off. So far, the price increase is leading me to think about the "other" lines I collect, but I've been sticking with Star Wars so far.
The other thing is that combined with the price increases, the just crazy pace of releases (with Star Wars in particular) is just a lot to keep up with anymore, at least for me. Heck, that's why I have to pick and choose with the big release this weekend. There seems to be more stuff out (money wise at least) than there was for the ROTS release, a movie that was much more hyped than the Clone Wars Animated stuff is. If we're going to get in a situation where basic figures are $10+ (VOTC prices, or even worse), then the only way I could likely keep up is if the releases were cut back to the early POTF2 type numbers of 20-30 figures per year. That's something I wouldn't mind personally (the release pace slowing, not the price increases), although I know others probably feel differently.