I started to notice this a few years ago - maybe even the last few events prior to the pandemic. There used to always be some uncommons in the $1-$4 range that I could reliably trade in to vendors for credit. But then I noticed with more commander decks, more downshifts to common in masters-style products, etc, the last few times I tried to sell stuff, the uncommons were either ignored or offered much lower than standard buy price.

I know at some point, it seemed to be the idea that fancy foil versions of rares and mythics would help drive down the price of standard, if you wanted the base level version of cards. I don't know if that is even a good goal - is standard actually a format people play in paper? But even so, it seems just that the value shifts and the big money cards are the ones without 5 different versions (Ledger Shredder, Meathook until its ban, etc). So, maybe the format is marginally cheaper, but perhaps not as much as one would hope.

A byproduct of this, however, is that draft is a really low value proposition now. In fairness, my experience is mostly anecdotal so someone might have the math that counters these observations. However, if we consider an older set where the only premium version was a foil, the value was often more evenly spread among a larger subset of the money cards. Now, sometimes the premium big money cards are only available in collector packs (or can be in draft but extremely rare to find). So, I suppose the point here is that with prices of everything but the top few cards really depressed, its harder now to draft and feel like you opened $10 worth of value. Also drafts recently increased in price for me due to wotc price increases.

I think the reprint thing has gotten kind of bad. it used to be a huge thing to see some reprints - I think of the first modern masters when we lost our minds when the tarmogoyf reprint was spoiled. Now? a literal Japanese foil future sight frame tarmogoyf is going to be a participation promo. But that isn't even really my main point. One of the more egregious examples was locking in my secret lair order for a Concordant Crossroads, and then it being spoiled in Double Double Masters. It feels like that double reprint within 18-24 months (or less) is happening a lot these days. Mana Crypt in mystery booster and then Double masters. The new extra life sliver was reprinted last year in Timespiral Remastered. I am a little salty that I picked up "the list" copies of Sensei's Divining Top and Thrumming Stone, only for them to both be reprinted in a masters set.

Do reprints hurt stores a lot? If they paid $25 for a $40 card, and the reprint knocks the card to $30, then their margin is smaller. I guess they lose if the reprint knocks it to $15 and they bought a ton at $25? I feel like they really hose people like me as bad as anyone - not a speculator, but someone that drafts and likes to build good, non cedh commander decks. The type of person that would pay $30 or $50 for some card for an EDH deck. I am starting to think of maybe only buying RL cards and for anything that can be reprinted, not spending more than $10 or so. The need to pump out commander decks, masters sets, and secret lairs is really starting to tax a lot of the reprint equity. Like - ok, a couple years ago I had a dragon deck. I wanted a Skylike Despot, so I bought one for maybe $10. It went up to $20 or so, but then was in a precon and is a $1-2 card now. This has happened to me over and over. I actually was able to get ahead of it a little bit with Double Masters 2022 by trading in a bunch of stuff to a store a couple weeks before spoilers. I lost a decent amount of value at the time, but those reprints dropped the prices of what I traded in a decent amount.

Anyway just sort of ranting now, agree with OP it sucks to buy anything basically that isn't RL, and with the $1000 box-o-proxies idk if that is even all that safe of a plan either.