I think a bigger issue will be the economy overall.. Toys have a tradition of not doing well in bad years, and that means if sales aren't what retail had hoped for on some of this stuff, they're less likely to give Hasbro an indication that THEY will bite... Regardless of consumer thoughts on the matter.
Case-in-point, Christmas wasn't even here and gone yet, and the Falcon saw a pretty wide price slash of 33% at most WM stores that had them. Most here had them, and most here went to $99 and are still holding in at that price. 33%'s not a huge cut in price, but anything over 20% usually isn't a good sign.
On the contrary, the AT-TE (at least here) is pretty well sold out and didn't really see anything but a 20% cut for a week here or there. At the same time though, your points are pretty valid Scott, and I think the leg issue will hurt the impression of this toy (and the line in general) and its quality. Likewise I agree with Nick that internally it's surely got someone in trouble for the design flaw. I don't know if that'll impact Hasbro's POV on big items or not, but it might.
I think the real thing they'll be looking at is whether Retailers think they're viable... Right now I'm not so sure, again citing the Falcon. Which I think that's an outstanding toy, believe me. I just think the fact there's quite a few around after Christmas and a seemingly national 33% price cut (at least at WM) are things that may hurt the biggest retailer's faith in these big ticket SW items.
GI Joe has a movie coming out... That's all it could take to get SW stuff, but SW doesn't have that going for it. It has a cartoon though?