And of course any collecting site that feels the need to tell their readers mid-article that they need to buy every figure they see to help support the line... really? No, really? I'm sorry, but I already buy 3x of every figure that comes out - two to open and one to keep on card, and you're telling me I gotta go buy more?
No offense, and I don't mean to single you out, but this is a big part of the problem. Why do collectors buy one of
every figure, or worse, three? Is everything they make really worth buying just because it has a Star Wars logo stamped on it? That's the kind of thing that sends the wrong message to Hasbro and allows them to get away with the stupid decisions they make. Like you said later on in your post, both the Movie Heroes AND Legacy Collection are going to have, minimally two EXACT SAME characters at the EXACT SAME time - the Red Geonosis Battledroid and the Sandtrooper. This is the same kind of thing Hasbro did this year by releasing Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan in both the Vintage line AND with Movie Heroes. Oh yeah, AND in a Battle Pack. With regards to the upcoming BD and Sandtrooper, are you going to tell me that both sets are worth buying?
To be honest, I'm glad there were problems with figures showing up at retail this year. You know why? Because it sent a signal loud and clear to Hasbro that not all collectors will gobble up the crap they put out. Hasbro released way too much TPM crap expecting collectors to go nuts over it (which they kind of did, initially), but then they kept sending more of the same with carryover figures in other assortments and what happened? Walmart, Target and TRU are stuffed to the gills with all the undesirables (which is pretty much everything for the exception of Darth Maul). The result: retailers didn't want to order any more cases because they might just sit on pegs like the other stuff. The big retailers don't know the difference between a Battle Droid and a Death Star Trooper. They just see Star Wars. So this is precisely why a bunch of cases are sitting in a warehouse. Distribution problems? Nah. It's hard to distribute what isn't being ordered. Let's see what happens with Droid Factory and let's see what kind of message collectors give Hasbro. Will they gobble up yet another batch of Clones, Anakins and Obi-Wans? We will see....