I don't think Medicom benefits from the regular placement of the chase within a case at all. Retailers/wholesalers/resellers like Robby and others do. Medicom produces whatever they like and I have to imagine the bulk of the sales is within Japan and Hong Kong, not the US. Most of those sales are probably by the box or an individual piece, not a master case. Blind packaging is very normal in Japan and well accepted as I understand it.
My guess is there aren't too many collectors buying master cases to secure full sets overseas, given the ready availability of the product at retail there. The US is in a very different situation here and our purchasing patterns are very different. What we order is peanuts to Medicom.
A more random situation in Japan may benefit sales there, because then retailers can't cherry pick the chase pieces out prior to putting them on store shelves for the consumer. If a retailer can go and pick out all the chase pieces and ebay or yahoo auction them, the regular consumer in Japan/Hong Kong is screwed. Maybe Honorius is a store owner who sees no point in allowing customers to pay $10 per chase piece randomly when he could make 10-15x that at retail. Maybe the customers over there know this happens and have complained to Medicom that the fun and excitement of finding a chase piece is gone because regular street level retailers ARE cherry picking. If Medicom doesn't resolve that, the regular Asian consumer is screwed and stops buying their product that way, instead opting for ebay/yahoo rather than regular retail. Retail sales overall drop and that does impact Medicom.
My understanding is that Japanese consumers will buy multiples from boxes in hopes of finding a chase. I've done this here with Gentle Giant bustups in hopes of finding the chase piece. The retailer is happy and so is the manufacturer, because I have now purchased 8 battle droids or whatever to find a chase and maybe still have no luck. But with Gentle Giant stuff here, like Medicom in Japan, I know of retailers that cherry pick and I don't buy from them. If I can't find it with luck here, I'll go straight to ebay and buy one only to get the piece I want. That's 1 vs. 8 pieces. The retailer loses and so does the manufacturer. I've dropped my purchasing by 80%+. Not good. And that's the norm in Japan.
I can't remember if we even know the number of master cases produced. A couple thousand? Did Jeff, who accounts probably for the largest single sale of Star Wars Kubricks in the US (Ok, maybe BBTS has him beat) account for even 1% of sales overall? I doubt it. But I don't know, I just think I can understand why Medicom might want to change.
My hope is that Dan just had really bad luck and Medicom or Robby will help him out. I wouldn't hold my breath on it though.
