To each their own I guess... Personally, I don't see why Brood would need the ankle joints... Or many other figures. For instance, why does the Neimoidian Soldier have the ankles over the knees? Is Hasbro saying that the NW figure was unable to stand because of the mold process or some such?
That doesn't make much sense to me... Which figures with ankle joints only, really had that "problem"? I could see Sun Fac maybe...
But seriously, Commander Bacara couldn't stand? All those other Clones could but not Bacara?
Can't say that answer makes much sense to me. I will say that if it was on more figures that couldn't stand, I'd agree that it makes a lot of sense... I wish that female alien separatist character (from the Sep. Council sets) had ankle joints because mine both fall over. That's more the plastic I guess, but some ankles would probably alleviate the problem a bit, if she (or the repaint of her) had them. The figures like Luke from the comic pack and things though, all seem like they'd stand fine without ankle joints to me.
BTW I didn't mention the boil & freeze technique, but it only works for re-posing figures really... If a figure's limb or weapon or something is warped, you can boil it to go back to its original shape, but the freeze doesn't hold something too thin to stand under its own weight or anything.