I'm going to throw this one out in there in case the Q&As continue, as I think it's something that really needs to be addressed, and soon, especially with the price increases:
Dear Hasbro:
Since wave 2 of the Vintage Collection was released during the fall of 2010, collectors across the United States have noted that the helmet of the ROTS Clone Trooper is severely discolored. The helmet is, at best, very much off-white, and at worst, is either already tinted green or brown. This could have (and, really, should have) been an isolated incident only seen in one area of the country or could have been attributed to a "bad batch" of materials, the figures could have been pulled as defective and returned to Hasbro, and future shipments could have been corrected so that this did not continue.
Sadly, however, not only was this incident not isolated, this particular figure continued to ship in at least 2 waves after its initial release (and is, at the time of this writing, scheduled to ship in another wave or 2 this spring) and the helmet problem remains. Even worse is that the recently released 212th repaint of this Clone Trooper ALSO has the same discolored helmet issue, and even the Vintage Stormtrooper that it ships alongside has a helmet which is already in the process of deteriorating.
With the rising costs across the board, and Hasbro's statements that with Vintage, things were to be "done right" the first time, why is this issue continuing to occur? The vast majority of Vintage figures across the country on pegs at this moment are ROTS Clone Troopers, the majority of whom have this very issue. It is clearly a subpar product using subpar materials, and it is disappointing for a "premium line" (premium in both pricing and detailing) to have such an obvious and damaging flaw.
So, all that aside, my questions are these: Is Hasbro planning on taking steps to correct these issues for future runs of these figures? Will currently available Clone figures (both ROTS and 212th versions) be treated as defective and recalled from retail?
Mods, if you choose to submit this question, feel free to modify it as necessary. The more I see the yellow helmeted Clones at retail, the more irritated I get. I'd be willing to bet that part of the reason they are pegwarming is because of the horribly discolored helmets.