Okay, first of all, I have to say it:
IN BEFORE GNT STARTS THE OFFICIAL EARLY BIRD CHECKLIST (if he has not done so already; if he hasn't, I'll give a shiny new nickel to the first person who starts such a checklist on the RS forums)
And on to the (relatively) serious stuff: If Hasbro relaunches SW for the new year, I'm going to be simultaneously irritated and relieved. Irritated because they will (most likely) begin ignoring the background stuff and/or things that we've been asking for for several years and concentrating on the main characters. Don't get me wrong, I would love a SA/Ultimate Maul/Jango/Qui-Gon/etc, but at the same time, part of what has made the line such a success (in my opinion) is the large variety of characters available. It's why (in my opinion) lines like SW, GI Joe, and Marvel Legends succeed while the Batman lines continually fail: Mattel (like Hasbro before them) makes 50 million versions of Batman and one villain per wave.
I'm also going to be irritated because (and this is based on the assumption that this will be an "Ultimate" line where the figures cannot be improved upon) Hasbro will start out doing a great job on the figures (along the lines of Pete's suggestion), but will gradually stop putting forth the effort. We need look no further than the VOTC, where Threepio seemed like an "Oh ****, we forgot to do Threepio" type of figure that was done at the last moment. Or (and this is again based on photos), as with the ROTS line, we'll start out getting Bail Organa-esque posability and we'll eventually wind up with Captain Antilles POTF2 statues. Hasbro is like a child these days: they are interested in something for ten minutes and then something cooler catches their attention and they couldn't care less about the original thing.
The relief would come from the hopes that they would do these figures in a completely new scale and the 4" line would end. While I would be pissed off that they would not have completed the big holes in my collection (Sith Infiltrator, about 15 different Padmes, a decent young and old Owen and a young Beru, a Cloud Car, etc), at the same time, I would not follow this line (from a completist standpoint) to a new scale and if they went bigger (size-wise), it would save me a lot of money, which would in turn, give me a lot of relief. I would still collect the Unleashed line (unless Hasbro decides to abandon it to devote more time to the by then hugely popular Force Battlers*), but if they went to a new scale, it would be a pick and choose situation for me.
The thing that I find completely ridiculous about all this is that Hasbro hasn't even released a clear statement and/or photos of what these four figures for the Early Bird set look like. With their present mindset, I wouldn't be surprised for Hasbro to start out spreading rumors that these would be part of a new line, only for them to abandon plans for that line completely and end up shipping everyone either Vintage repros of those four, or the VOTC versions in a white mailer box. Then they could say, "We never said what versions they would be, you guys just drew your own conclusions."
And also, have they actually said how long people will have to wait for these figures once they mail in their certificates?
*complete and total sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell.
