OTC was a fun line, though they had less stuff overall than this year... That's the only major improvement on TSC.
The price for OTC though, and availability, and a general knowledge that there weren't going to be a bunch of grotesque mamajama's pawing through the SW figures and leaving the aisle in disarray... THose were reasons to like OTC more I think. OTC really picked up at the end too with the Cantina Wave showing what great figures are all about too, and then that carried over into 2005 and the Preview wave of ROTS figures, then into ROTS...
I dunno what happened, but then prices jumped, figures went back to less articulation, and Hasbro decided they needed to implement "chase" items in the hobby... I'm not a completist for things like UGH, so that doesn't bother me, but what does bother me is that UGH has made our hobby a big target for the Hot Wheels dillholes who live off their local toy aisles. We didn't have that problem before really... AT least not to this extent. My area was pretty clean for these people, but now I notice the SW section is routinely destroyed at every store, namely basic figures, as some pud rifles through the pegs without being the slightest bit courteous to the employees.
For me, I've dealt with the influx of new blood without much problem... The big gripe to me is in 2006 we saw an overall decrease in articulation and a relatively fairly large increase in price... That seems like 2 steps backwards, then 1 more just to kick ya in the nuts.