This is always a touchy subject. However, I like this line. I would be willing to pay $20 per figure IF the character selection is good.
I agree with you completely, Nick. I could honestly not name a "bad" figure out of all the ones that have been done in the Unleashed line (even Chewbacca is neat in his own way), and I cannot look at any of them and say I wouldn't give 20 dollars apiece for them if that was what it took.
The reason I got into collecting the line was the fact that I could finally put something on my desk that looked incredible that would not fall over if someone walked by quickly and/or heavily. The detailing was great, the quality of the figures (and their sturdiness) was, for the most part, great, and for Hasbro to cancel the line is mind blowing. Okay, so they said it was "on hiatus" but that honestly seems to me as if they are trying to shield themselves from criticism while people can see them in person in SD, but as soon as they get back to Minas Morgul in Rhode Island, they'll say, "Oh it's cancelled and we're never doing anymore" so they don't have to face the inevitable backlash.
The switch to a small scale just baffles me too. You used the AOME line for LOTR as an example, and it actually works as an example for me in that that line hardly sold any at all around here until they started to be clearanced. If Hasbro thinks that more people are going to buy a 2" line that has none of the detailing and/or cool factor of the 7" line, they are even more far gone than I already think they are.
And I'll be the first one to say this (although I may be in the minority): the 2" figures that showed up in the display case photos yesterday post-Q&A SUCKED. They looked like slightly less cartoony Attacktix figures, and had even less detail than the WOTC minatures line (which has a lot at that scale).
It'll make one shipment before it's cancelled because retail sees that nobody wants them. It'll go until June of 2006 at the absolute latest before it goes belly-up in the clearance aisle prior to the fall resets at retail.