Shenanigans with Playskool's Galactic Heroes

I'm rather annoyed.

I have a son who's going to be four at the end of the month. And one of the things we have been purchasing for him over the course of his life are the Star Wars PlaySkool Galactic Heroes line.

It started out simple. There was the X-Wing, Naboo N-1, the Falcon, and then a couple of other sets which gave some awesome characters.

I got a great kick of of the things.

Then more were released and these were two-packs of figures. Bounty hunters, clone troopers, droids, rebels, two new vehicles, and all sorts of fun.

Of course, like all good things SW, even more were released. Yet I noticed something odd. Every single character being released was either a repaint or a "hologram" of an existing character.

Which is fine. Because by that point those that were being repainted had been off the shelves for years, and were not widely distributed even when they were on the shelves.

But what really irks me is the latest batch they've released.

As always they are two-character packs. Yet they have taken to putting new characters in with repaints. Which means that for me to garner a complete collection of these little guys I'll have to get multiple copies of the exact same figure.

I live on a budget - we are a single-income family. I can't afford to toss money away on multiple copies of the exact same figure. I can understand wanting to stick Han with Greedo - but make it a different Han than was previously released.

I mean I can convince myself to purchase multiple versions of the same figure. I have the Hoth!Han, ANH!Han and ESB!Han. And I'm fine with that. But when packaging requires me to purchase a second ESB!Han - well that irks me to no end.

I know that Lucas Licensing is a business, and that their primary concern is showing a profit - but packing these toys in this manner is just...well wrong.

I would rather they be packed individually - and I just hope that someone associated with this mess reads this and fixes things.

But the Cynic in me says that that won't happen. And judging by the new 'scenes' (with 4 repaints and 2 new figures) I think the Cynic might be right.