You're comparing apples and oranges Depressis, so your analogies don't really help...
This is discussing a figure that's currently shipping still to Wal-Mart and Toys R Us (and perhaps KB?), and not been difficult to find. Toy Fare's "values" may be right or they may be wrong. I don't know many people in the vintage SW hobby who'd put much faith at all in the "value" system Toy Fare has for vintage Star Wars... I personally feel that translates then across the board and nothing is a "deciding factor" as to why Toy Fare is wrong other than they always seem to estimate things for a LOT more than what the average collector is willing to pay (IE: One with some common sense and savy about his/her hobby).
I see people pay $15 or $20 for a brand new figure at the local Toy Show every time it rolls around... That doesn't put that figure's actual worth at that price though, at least to me. To me since it's something to be found at retail, retail price is it's actual worth. Anything above that is a fluke in the system.
Vintage... A whole other ball of wax, and that includes your RotLA deal. Old figures obviously have some value above their retail prices... Not always (even generally) in the "modern" line of SW figures of course, but the true vintage that didn't have a strong collector base, that's a fact... So your Raiders figures acrued in value. I don't attribute it to a film, Ebay, or anything else. They were just old and from a line of toys that some people like collecting so they gained in value.
Compared to Ebay, Toy Fare's estimated value of RotLA figures is laughable and I agree with most that say Ebay's your best bet to find the true value/worth of something.
So TF's values they attribute to modern I find even more laughable. They gauge value of something that can still be had fresh from the case at a store, and they place that value at 2 or 3 times the retail cost. Given the "staying power" of modern SW figures in the secondary market in general, I'd say their value estimates might be 4 or 5 times higher than what the item may eventually fetch... That's of course not to say that ALL modern is worthless, but a lot of it is, and when it's still shipping I think that applies double.
And I don't think it's films or anything that dropped the prices of modern SW figures... It's the fact that the market's saturated with it. While actual figures aren't public knowledge, it's pretty well known that production of modern figures is well into the thousands. That alone is reason that Toy Fare's values are comically high, coupled of course with the fact you can walk out on a toy run tonight and find one for $7. That's just common sense to me.
But it's also the crede of collecting communities like here that what you paid is what it's worth... Nobody is supposed to be attempting to make a profit off their SW figures within this site, so it's also assumed you'd be able to grab one of those R5's for its cost on the boards if someone has one available and a plea was put out for one. I know that's at least the ideal situation at most all boards like ours.