[boombatty]

Not to simply jump in a long in the tooth argument but well....screw it...

I remember a recession back (probably @2008 timeline) when the 3.75" scale had a grand resurgence and the same arguments were being made about the 6" line being an economic drag for Hasbro and I wanted to chuckle except then I read an article in some online newspaper (I don't remember if it was an ABCNews, USAToday, WSJ but it was something not entirely laughable) before the advent of 20,000+ fake newsites and lo and behold, it looked to be true. It was going over the price of oil skyrocketing and the correlation between it and packaging, manufacturing and shipping costs. Basically all went up dramatically and thus the smaller figures (this was one of a few items it referred to but it was centered around the toy industry) would use less resources and could be shipped in larger numbers for less. As such the cost for the 3.75" figs went up but not in enough range to kill interest while the 6" and above had to be dramatically scaled back to keep costs from spiraling out of control. Thus the argument was made that when the economy, particularly driven by the stock market and oil markets, is high, you will see an increase in the 6", 12" and other large scales with the smaller scales ramped down. When the next recession hits you will see a resurgence in smaller scales as the economy dictates. So for all the folks on the 3.75"-4" figure jones just hope for another economic crash :P
Then you will be in 3.75" golden times.

It was part of an overall series of articles, ala Freakenomics, explaining US Economy impacts to toys, music (when hard rock/rap is more popular vs Pop music apparently is also tied to economic stability, go figure), and a host of interesting items.