I am certainly enjoying this new part of the hobby since I've quit buying most stuff.  Really down to Hallmark ornaments, books and comics, retro collection, and these types of custom vintage stuff.  I have bought a few vintage pieces in the past year, but not sure how much more I will pick up due to cost.  I'm really considering ditching Hallmark as well due to the cost and the fact they go on the tree for one year then get packed away.

For his upcoming stuff, I pre-ordered Holiday Fett, RFT and Bantha from the UK site.  I think going forward I will just wait for the US site to get stock in to save on the shipping.  I think I'm down to the new jawa and slave leia for what I don't have that are still available.  I have also passed on any remakes of Hasbro figures thinking I might some day fill the last 17 holes in my collection.

As for the man himself, I don't know why he continues.  He posts rants every two or three days.  I can understand being mad seeing ~$40 items being listed on ebay for 5 to 10x, but you can't control what people will do.  I never liked the scalper mentality myself.  I have never bought any SW item with intent to quickly flip it.  Currently, I have an extra Oola and Girindan because I ordered those two and my gf also bought them for me as birthday gifts when I thought everything would sell out when the astromechs were getting all sold.  I haven't bothered trying to sell the extras at this point.  In the past four years, I have sold a bunch of my collection and still have a bunch to sell.  I'm certainly trying to sell for as much as I can get.  Granted, all my items are generally older, but still, I'm not going to sell say a MR saber hilt for the ~$300 MSRP if I can get five to ten times that amount now.  Essentially it comes down to having different priorities, bills to pay, and a different focus in my collection.  In an ideal world, I would sell stuff I don't want and convert it to stuff I do.  One of the bigger attractions to vintage besides the nostalgia, is that it is finite.  There are just so many vehicles and figures.  Even hunting down the few variants isn't as bad as all the modern Hasbro craziness.

As for the custom stuff, I think I may just stick to SS from now on.  I have the Bantha and wave of 13 on "preorder" from TFSB.  If I could go back, I think I would have just went with SS from the beginning, but TFSB is who I found first.  I can't see myself doing a preorder from them again even if I receive everything from them.  The Bantha excuses are pretty thin, but the fact they have only sent two of the 13 other figures is nonsense at this point considering how quickly SS gets stuff out.  For SS, I preordered the Bantha from the second batch 2/15 and the RFT 3/17.  Both are getting ready to ship soon, so we are talking about three and two months for custom made stuff.  By contrast, I was really late to TFSB Bantha, but I preordered that on 1/15/22, and I know people preordered much earlier than I did and still don't have it.  I preordered the wave of 13 on 12/30/21 and have received Thrawn and ST Han.  It has taken way too long.  I just hope to get everything and just move on.  No way I can go with another wave, no mattter what it is.

Cost is what has kept we away.  I bought an auction many years ago that got me an almost complete run of everything except last 17, droids, and ewoks with several variants.   Several figures could probably use upgrades for better paint and such.  Also missing a few accessories.  In the more recent, I picked up a complete Falcon and some micro collection stuff.  Perhaps once I finish paring down my existing collection, I might get back into looking at vintage again.  I do like the thought of collecting a line that has actually ended and doesn't take up a ton of space.  I already have the vintage 12" line.  I also have a Death Star playset, so with the falcon that is two of the bigger items.  I also have a vintage AT-AT that is missing one of the jaw guns.  Never had a vintage shuttle.  I have been looking through some vehicles on ebay and FB.  I have come to realize that vintage is what I prefer at this point.  Hence why I have been buying retro collection stuff even though I quit buying Hasbro stuff a while ago.

WHERE IS JORUS C'BOATH!

Apparently, after yesterday, it is Gideon.

I'm interested to see where this will go.  In the old EU, Wayland was where the Emperor set up his secret stash of weapons and technology, including what were called "Spartii" cloning cylinders - as a note anything related to the prequels and the Clone Wars were off limits to Star Wars authors at the time.  Said facility was guarded by a mad clone of Jorus C'Baoth.  We also ended up with a clone of Luke from his severed hand.  The crux was that the Emperor was trying to figure out how to make Force sensitive clones that weren't subject to madness.  The other major plot point was that Thrawn thought he needed a Force wielder in order to re-establish the Empire.

In the current continuity, we have the return of Thrawn from parts unknown.  When he was removed from the storyline, he was with Ezra.  Ezra had the upper hand it seemed.  In all these years, did Thrawn persuade Ezra to join his cause?  Did he somehow over power him?  Will he be used as a clone template?  We have two dark side Force wielders that we know little about at this time.  We also have Gideon, who may have been successful in creating a Force sensitive clone from a non-Force sensitive template.  My thought is that while Gideon prime may have bit the dust, I bet there is a surviving clone somewhere.  I don't see the actor going away quite yet.

Ahsoka is in a much different head space than where Luke was in Heir to the Empire.  I don't see how they can go with the "join me" plot with Ahsoka.  Luke was looking for anything from the Jedi's past, while Ahsoka is very aware of the dark side and evil intentions.  She certainly wouldn't entertain joining a Force sensitive Gideon unless there is going to be some sort of Gideon vs Thrawn battle.

At this point, I think they are building towards some version of Heir to the Empire.  I'm sure it will be another thing for the fan boys to have fits over.  While a great set of novels, I don't think direct adaptations would have made great movies.

From what we have seen in post Disney Star Wars media, we have several elements from the original Thrawn trilogy:  Wayland has been shown in Bad Batch, and there is an emphasis on cloning, the Client wanted Grogu for his blood for Pershings/Gideon's midichlorian cloning experiments, Thrawn is returning from points unknown (in the original EU Palpatine sent him to the unknown regions to identify a threat, in the Disney cannon he was removed to points unknown with Ezra in Rebels), former Imperials are being referred to as Warlords, much like in many of the early EU novels, Pelleaon shows up and his a Thrawn fan boy, Thrawn had Ruhk as an assassin/tracker/assistant in Rebels.

With the announcement of the Filoni movie pulling all his shows together, Heir is the logical choice.  We have seen two force sensitive adversaries for the Ahsoka series.  The male character could serve as a possible C'Baoth stand in.  I think Ahsoka may fill in a Mara Jade role, minus the love interest part.  Gideon will be a "rebel" Imperial presence for Thrawn to either bring in-line or destroy.

https://www.target.com/p/star-wars-the-mandalorian-retro-collection-prototype-edition-action-figure/-/A-87046825

Finally in stock for ordering.  Limit of 2 again.  Glad they got them.

Target has changed things up in my area.  They have a Disney section at the end of the toy aisle with all of their properties so finding Star Wars wasn't easy.  They had a single empty peg for the Retro Mando figure but it was labeled something different, can't quite recall what it said, but had the Mando DPCI.

If you go on the SS FB group, someone made a visual guide for the figures.  Like you noted, you didn't get 000, but there is also a Glasslite C-3PO.  Essentially flat gold paint and not vac metal in appearance.  You have all the unique astromechs.  He did make a Yavin version of R2 which looks very close to a vintage R2.  Not sure if the only difference is dome paint colors.  There is also an R5-D4 which looks identical to vintage.  Others are pop-up saber R2 which looks like the vintage counter part.  Droids R2 which I'm not as familiar with in the vintage realm, but his version has a pop up saber, glasslite R2 with pop up saber, and R2 Uzay version.  There are also three death star droids, silver (which looks like the vintage version), black, and gold.

I would think so.  I had DM'ed the owner on facebook and he indicated that had plans for both an ESB and a ROTJ wave after the first 13 wave was completed.  I have my doubts at this point that any other product will come out.

I think their main focus is actually producing something that will actually get funded.  If they have another failure, then the whole program becomes a joke.

I still can't understand why they aren't pushing for either a Death Star playset or a Star Destroyer.