It seems to be standard marketing practice with toys these days though. Buzz is what it's all about.
From my perspective though, it doesn't seem to work too well. I think they have it down right with the way they did the chase figures for Indy and the two Fett versions. Really quite rare and you have to have lots of luck, or a strong desire to go chasing them.
The quasi-chase with the sandtroopers (I'm writing the cantina members off as different country of origin factors) is not such a good idea, as you indicate Matt.
McFarlane has a similar theory and it is waning. The anxiety it causes just isn't worth it and is pushing collectors away, at least to some extent. It simply becomes an ebay destined product that the average collector seldom has a shot at. Medicom does have a small advantage in that they use blind boxes, so you can't cherry-pick. This seems to be fairly common in Japan and might be the driving reason behind it. Like the Tomy figures, you're probably supposed to be a couple of figures at a time, see what you get and then go back to get more. Sort of like baseball cards. The Tomy figures/dioramas are just like that. I was thrilled to get two complete sets of Tomy dioramas given the difficulty I had in finding the R2/3PO diorama to complete the first set. So unlike McFarlane, it might not be malice, just a poor translation of a normal situation in Japan to other markets.
Certainly MOTU, Mattel Batman and others have shown how easy it is to blow the whole theory. MOTU villains are almost chase like and certainly anything with 1 figure per case of 12 certainly fits the bill too. Ah well, no one listens to us anyway.
